


Wolf in Progress

by codswallop



Category: Schitt's Creek
Genre: Alternate Universe - Werewolf, Alternate Universe where Ted doesn't galapa-go anywhere, Blood and Injury, Dubious Consent, Hurt/Comfort, Knotting, M/M, Mating Cycles/In Heat, Peril and adventure, Porn with Feelings, Various townspeople in cameo, Werewolf Patrick
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-08-11
Updated: 2019-10-25
Packaged: 2020-08-19 09:30:22
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 3
Words: 27,032
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/20207521
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/codswallop/pseuds/codswallop
Summary: “So, there’s one more kind of big thing I’ve never told you,” said Patrick.





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> This fic is tagged dubious consent due to the inherent nature of the "werewolf in heat" trope, relevant mainly to the first chapter.
> 
> Many many thanks to Lettered for all the encouragement, help with concepting, and beta reading! Thanks also to Leupagus, ICMezzo, and Nervouscupcake for totally above & beyond cheerleading and brainstorming.

“So, there’s one more kind of big thing I’ve never told you,” said Patrick.

“Mmhm.” David was glued to his phone, only half paying attention, if that; a quarter, maybe. It was the day of the Met Gala, for god’s sake. So many questionable choices. 

“And now that we’re engaged and going to be moving in together, I think it’s important that you know this about me,” Patrick went on.

“Oh my god, she did NOT,” David gasped. “No. Oh, Karlie, no. Oh, my eyeballs. Why. Sorry, hon—this is kind of a big—and I know about your dishwashing rules. I promise I’ll do better when we actually live together.”

“This isn’t about the dishes, David.” Patrick’s voice sounded strained. “Could you put your phone down for a minute, actually? I really need to tell you this, and it’s...not easy.”

“Wow, okay.” David tore his eyes away from his phone but kept it in his hand. “That sounds serious,” he said apprehensively. “Where does this fall on a scale of ‘I used to host open mic nights in high school,’ to ‘I was recently engaged to someone else’?”

“Um, maybe...somewhere in between, toward the higher end of the scale? But it’s not...okay, just listen. You know how I like to go on hikes.”

“Yes, Patrick. I’m very much aware that you’re hike-sexual. Wait, is this a kink thing? Naked hiking, is that what you’re actually into? That seems like a very bad, very unsafe practice to me.”

“David, seriously, are you going to let me tell you what I need to tell you or not?”

David cast another wistful glance at his phone. He’d much rather be texting with Alexis about Harry Styles’ red carpet look than having this conversation, and he hoped Patrick would get to the point soon so that he could tell him it was fine, whatever it was, and then get back to the important news of the day. But he was in a Serious Relationship now, and would therefore need to learn to make sacrifices, even tough ones like this. He put his phone down on the table and pushed it slightly out of reach so he wouldn’t be tempted by it. 

“Tell me,” he said to Patrick, sitting up straight and giving him at least a good facsimile of his full attention.

Patrick looked fidgety. He jammed his hands into his pockets and took a deep breath, then let it out. “Okay. Okay. So, about five years ago now, I went on a day hike when I was visiting friends in Alberta—Molly and Rupert, remember I told you about them, they’ve got the—”

“Yep, Molly and Rupert, Alberta, hiking,” David repeated, making a little _go on_ motion with his hand and trying not to let his eyes stray over to his phone.

“Right. And Molly had to work that day and Rupert had thrown his back out, so I was hiking solo, which wasn’t ideal, in that territory, not when I didn’t know the terrain, and it was a difficult trail, too, I definitely don’t recommend—you know what, you’re not listening. Let’s just do this later, all right? I know you want to get back to your opera thing or whatever.”

“Patrick, really? It’s the Met _Museum_. We’ve talked about this. Not the Met Opera. And it can wait. Just...speed it up a little, maybe?”

“No, I’ll tell you another time. Really. It’s not actually that big of a—”

“Patrick. Oh my god. Just get it out. Say the words. Skip the hiking safety tips, skip your friends and their unusual pets and their back problems and just _tell me_, I’m not going to freak out on you, I promise!”

“I was bitten by a werewolf!” Patrick cried out. “I’m a werewolf. That’s what I wanted to tell you.”

“Okay,” David said, after several endless seconds of deafening silence. “So you have my complete and absolute attention now. I may have lied about the not freaking out.”

*

David drank the glass of whiskey that Patrick brought him and then asked several urgent and immediate questions, the answers to which turned out to be:

1) Yes, an actual wolf-shaped wolf, not some kind of gross human-wolf hybrid thing

2) No, he wasn’t actually that familiar with how wolf penises worked; he’d never had sex as a wolf 

3) Definitely not, never any humans, just rabbits and the occasional deer, and once a cat that he’d felt really badly about, but he was pretty sure it was a stray

“I’m on suppressants,” Patrick explained. “So I hardly ever actually transform. But they say it’s really best to do it for at least one full moon a year, or there can be...issues. You remember when I went on that camping trip last year around this time?”

“Yes,” David said slowly. “Oh my god, yes, I do remember now—I told you all your gear smelled like roadkill when you came back, and you said a coyote had gotten into your tent while you were out getting firewood!”

“Yeah,” Patrick said, rubbing his hands over his face. “I was...I didn’t feel like I could tell you yet, back then. But I want to be totally honest with you now. I’m trying. It’s...not something I’ve been very good at, I know.”

David came over and sat next to him on the couch and put his arms around Patrick’s hunched shoulders. “I’m glad you told me now,” he said bravely. “Um. So you’re going to be doing this...transformation thing again, soon?”

“There’s a full moon the weekend after next. It doesn’t actually need to affect you at all, except for covering the store on your own for a few days—you don’t have to know anything about it. I’ll take off before it starts. I’ll go up to the mountains and...yeah. I just didn’t want to lie to you about it again.”

“Thank you,” David said, meaning it. He lifted Patrick’s face up so he could kiss him. Then he broke it off to say, “Okay, but I am going to have to make a lot of really merciless dog jokes in very poor taste, for at least the next few weeks, just so you’re aware.”

“Mm, looking forward to that,” Patrick said, and pulled him back to finish the kiss.

*

Patrick didn’t bring up the whole werewolf thing again the next day. Nor the day after that. David tried to give him space, but he’d been doing a lot of googling, and the dubious-looking sources he found only left him with more questions. A lot more questions. 

“What colour is your coat?” David finally couldn’t resist asking, figuring he’d start with an easy one. It was Saturday morning, a week before the full moon. “You know, your...pelt? Fur? Wolfskin?”

“My coat? Uh, brindle, I guess,” Patrick said, looking startled over the rim of his tea mug. “Sort of a reddish brindle, I think? I don’t actually...I don’t hang around looking in mirrors much, after I’ve changed.”

“How long do you stay in your wolf form? Do you change back during the day? Do you still think like yourself and have your own memories, or—”

“Wow, questions today,” Patrick said, putting down his mug. “Okay.”

“I’m sorry,” David said. “You don’t have to answer them.”

“No, it’s fine.” Patrick reached across the table and took one of David’s hands as he was starting to draw back. “I’ve just never...do you really want to know?”

_“Yes,”_ David said, and then worried that he’d sounded a little too emphatic. “I mean, of course? Why wouldn’t I want to know?”

“No one else ever has, I guess,” Patrick said, so offhandedly that David could almost believe it was no big deal to him. “It’s, you know, it’s not something people usually...I mean…never mind.” He cleared his throat. “Okay. Transformations last three nights, from moonrise on the first night to moonset on the third, and I don’t...I don’t think I change back during the day, but I wouldn’t know for sure. I’ve heard stories about werewolves who change back when they’re asleep, but I think maybe that’s just folklore. And I guess I...sort of think like myself? But with a wolf’s brain, so it comes out really different, like a bad translation, maybe. I can’t really describe it.” He shrugged. 

There was a lot going on in this conversation already, and David was having a hard time digesting it all: that Patrick wouldn’t know everything there was to know about his wolf self; that the other people in his life for the past five years somehow hadn’t been as fascinated as David was; that Patrick’s coat was reddish brindle; that maybe this wasn’t something Patrick was happy to discuss, especially at eight-thirty in the morning before he’d finished his second cup of tea.

“We really don’t have to talk about it,” David told him. “But I am interested. Just so you know.”

Patrick half-rose from the table so that he could lean over and kiss David on the cheek. “Thank you,” Patrick said, and went back to the paper and his toast.

Well. That seemed conclusively inconclusive. David would have to look elsewhere for the information he wanted, then. 

*

On the Tuesday before the full moon, while Patrick was out picking up lunch for both of them and no one else was in the store, David phoned Alexis.

“What,” she said. “I can’t right now.”

“Fine,” he told her, and hung up.

She called him back within the minute. “Ugh, _what_, David?”

“You remember that time you were in that cheesy stupid music video shoot in Prague for three weeks when you were nineteen?”

Alexis paused. “Oh, right,” she said eventually. “Prague. Sure, what about it?”

David shut his eyes and pinched the bridge of his nose. “You weren’t in Prague at all, that time, were you? I fucking knew it. Where—no, wait, never mind, I don’t care. You remember how you told me they were shooting that werewolf scene, and they hired actual werewolves for it?”

“Yeah, and?” Alexis sighed. “I know you thought I was making it up, which, whatever, I’m not the one who needed to invent stories to make myself seem more interesting back then, but—”

“Hey,” David protested. “I didn’t ask for this kind of retroactive slander! I just wanted to know something! You said you hooked up with one of the werewolf guys—were you lying about that?”

“Oh,” said Alexis. “Actually, no. He was really...mmm. _Intense._”

David shuddered. “I don’t want details!” he said quickly. “Okay, I sort of do want details. What do you mean by intense?”

“Ew,” she said. “I’m not talking about this with you. Perv.”

“So it was, um, pervy? With...stuff like they say online?”

“David! God! Why are you asking me this! I’m hanging up now.”

“It’s for Stevie,” he said quickly. “I’m asking for Stevie. She met this guy online, and he seems really nice, but he also happened to mention that he’s a werewolf, and she needs to know what she’s getting into. I told her to ask you herself but she’s too embarrassed.”

“Aww!” Alexis’s voice went up two octaves. “Poor thing! She’s so sensitive under all that flannel and eye makeup. I’ll go talk to her. Don’t worry.”

“No! Don’t. Seriously. She’ll rip my head off if she finds out I told you. But she looked up a bunch of stuff on this website, okay, and it made her a little… She just wants to know if it’s true. At all.”

“Oh. Well.” Alexis said. “I mean. Probably? Like I said. Intense. I’ll never forget it, actually. We were staying in this hotel that happened to be sort of technically in a war zone, and we didn’t even _notice_ the explosions that night, let alone—”

“What war zone were you in?! Oh my god, shut up, I don’t even want to know. I just want to know if this fucking website is remotely accurate or not, so I—so Stevie can be prepared!”

“Fine. What’s the website?”

David told her, and waited while she looked it up.

“Um,” said Alexis. “Pretty accurate, yeah. Except for the diagram; it’s actually a lot bigger than—”

“Thanks, that’s _so_ much more than I need to know, I’m hanging up so I can go vomit now,” David said.

“You asked,” Alexis told him sweetly. “Bye!”

*

“What about heat?” David asked Patrick on Wednesday, having decided on a direct approach while they were cleaning up after dinner. “Do you go into heat, before you transform?”

“Oh my god,” Patrick said. He put down the dish he was drying, very carefully, and hung the dish towel over his shoulder, then braced himself against the counter with both arms, looking up at the ceiling as if for divine assistance. 

“Look, it’s a thing! I’ve read about it; I’ve heard stuff,” David defended himself. “I just want to be prepared! It’s coming up soon! Did you really never talk about this with anyone else you were with, before? That’s extremely hard to believe, is all I’m saying.”

“Well, believe it,” Patrick said to the ceiling. “You’re unique.”

“I’m not being weird!” David insisted. “It’s a pretty basic thing to want to know about in this situation!”

“Okay,” Patrick said after a few more moments, and blew out a breath. “You’re probably right. You are. You’re right. I’m just not used to talking about it.” He picked up the dish and started drying it again. “Look, I don’t know what you’ve been reading, but it’s nothing like whatever you’ve heard, probably. At least not for me. I’ve never...okay, there is a sort of a, a heightened awareness thing, for a day or two before, with some sensory...stuff, and yeah, sometimes I get a little...”

“Horny?” David suggested.

“I mean...I guess, yeah, but it’s not anything I can’t take care of on my own, so don’t worry about that.” Patrick was still working away at the dish he was holding.

“I think that’s dry now,” David told him, nodding at it, and Patrick quickly put the dish down and picked up another one. “I wasn’t worried about it,” David went on, scrubbing at the pasta pot. “It sounded kind of, potentially, um, exciting, actually, I was thinking?”

“Sorry to disappoint you, then,” Patrick said tightly. “I’m not really that kind of a werewolf, I guess.”

“Well, that’s fine,” David said. “I just wanted to know. Whatever kind of werewolf you are, I want to know everything about it.”

“Yeah, I’m getting that.” Patrick sounded tired.

David took the dish away from him and kissed him; Patrick didn’t resist, but he didn’t return the kiss with any enthusiasm, either. “Why don’t you go for a walk,” David suggested. “I’ll finish up here. And I won’t ask you any more questions. I promise.”

“David,” Patrick began, then stopped. “Fine. Good idea.” He shook his head, started to say something again, then tossed the dish towel down and left the apartment.

David finished doing the dishes. He was thinking so hard that he was surprised to reach down and find an empty sink after what seemed like only a couple of minutes. He dried his hands and put the dishes in the drainer away. He made two cups of tea and sat down at the table with a book. It was fully dark and the tea was cold by the time he heard Patrick’s key in the lock. 

“Hi,” said Patrick, and came over and slumped down in the chair across from him at the table. “I’m sorry.”

David shook his head. “No, _I’m_ sorry. You don’t want to talk about it; you’ve made that really clear, and I should respect that. I don’t need to know. It’s fine—you can go off and do your thing the way you always have.”

“It’s just that it’s not such a big deal, really, transforming,” Patrick said, but at least he was actually looking at David now. “Not for me, it’s never been...I know the stories; I’ve read them too, but it’s just never been like that for me. I think it’s different for different people.”

“Uh-huh, that makes sense,” David said, nodding. “And that’s fine with me. Honestly. I just didn’t want you do feel like you had to, you know, hide it, or...or hold back, if that’s what you used to do with...other people in your life. You wouldn’t have to do that with me.”

“Well, thanks.” Patrick looked at his hands. “That’s really nice, and I appreciate it.” He got up from the table. “I’m going to go take a shower and then turn in, okay? I’m pretty beat.” He dropped a kiss on David’s hair and squeezed his shoulder briefly in passing, and that was that. End of conversation.

David made himself stay off the internet that night.

*

When he woke up the next morning, Patrick was licking his neck.

“Mmm,” David mumbled, not at all awake. “Frisky. Hello.”

Patrick rubbed his nose into the spot he’d been licking and inhaled deeply, grinding up against David’s hipbone at the same time; he was very hard, and David began to wake up a little more.

“You smell so good,” Patrick moaned into his neck. “What did you do? Is this a new—oh, _damn_,” he said suddenly, in an entirely different tone, and then he was gone, off the bed, moving across the room.

“Hey,” David protested, rising up onto his elbows and touching his neck, which now felt cold and neglected. “Come back. Where. Why. More, I wanted more of that.”

Patrick disappeared into the bathroom instead, and David could hear the sink running. He returned a few minutes later, looking shamefaced and a little damp around the edges, as though he’d just splashed water onto his face and hadn’t dried it off very well. “Sorry,” he said, getting back into bed but keeping to his own side. “I was dreaming. Hm. Caught me off guard, I didn’t expect...yeah. Sorry.”

“Don’t be sorry,” David said, puzzled, and reached for him. “Why would you be sorry? Come back and do that some more.”

Patrick resisted. “Yeah, maybe not right now. Remember I told you about that sort of heightened sensory thing that happens, before I, you know. A day or two before the full moon? I guess that’s sort of starting to...happen. Now.”

“Oh,” David said. “Okay. So? Is it like...really unpleasant? Because it sort of seemed like you were enjoying it. A lot. What do I smell like to you now? Is it like a food smell, or…” He saw Patrick’s expression and stopped. “Again with the questions, I know, never mind, just—“

Patrick let the corners of his mouth turn up slightly. “It’s fine,” he said. “You smell like a steak dinner, actually. I wasn’t going to tell you, but you wanted to know, so…” He made his eyes go big and hungry and suddenly fell upon David’s neck, sinking his teeth into it and growling, and David felt his stomach sink with a jolt of hot panic before registering that the growls had turned to laughter.

“Oh my god,” he said, pushing Patrick away. “That’s so not funny.”

“Kinda was, though,” Patrick said, and it was good to see him laugh, so David made a face at him and smacked him on the arm to see if he could make it last. Patrick caught his hand and kissed it and then lay back down next to him.

“Seriously, though,” David said. “What’s the problem? You’re not actually going to change until the full moon, right? Do I smell like, I don’t know, um, prey? Or something?”

Patrick shook his head. “No. I don’t know. It just caught me off guard, that’s all. I felt...out of control, for a minute there. Not like I was going to hurt you, though,” he said quickly. “At least, I don’t think that’s it. It was just...” He trailed off and shook his head. “I don’t know. Too much, or something.”

David nodded. “Mm-hm, I’ve heard that a lot. My milkshake brings _alllll_ the werewolves to the yard, baby.” He tried out a sexy little shimmy, and Patrick smiled briefly at him, but still seemed off-kilter. It was hard to define. He didn’t look different, David thought, studying him, except maybe for his eyes, the pupils too dilated for the early morning light.

“Hey,” David told him. “It’s fine. Forget it. You want to stay home today and chill? I can handle things at the store.”

“No,” Patrick said. “I’ll pack up tonight and head for the hills with my gear tomorrow, first thing, but there’s stuff I was going to take care of at the store today, and you have that vendor meeting with Mindy at eleven, don’t you?”

“I could reschedule it,” David said doubtfully. “Are you sure?”

“Yeah, it’s fine. No big deal.” Patrick leaned over and gave him a quick peck of a kiss that turned lingering. His hand came up to cup David’s jaw, and his nose trailed down to nudge hard at the hollow of his neck again. Patrick inhaled deeply. “Mm,” he said. “Wow. Okay. Going to go shower now.” He tore himself away and disappeared into the bathroom again, leaving David to touch the spot below his jaw that Patrick had suddenly found so irresistible and wonder what it smelled like to him.

*

David met with Mindy to sample her new line of aromatic salt scrubs, and ended up putting in an order for the rosemary mint, the grapefruit, and the coconut musk. He reordered some of her home fragrance wax melts as well, and even remembered to get the contract paperwork signed before he left, feeling very self-satisfied and exceptionally exfoliated. He was contemplating stopping for sandwiches on the way back at that really good place in Elm Falls that was only a little out of his way and only coincidentally near the artisanal ice cream parlor he loved so much, but he wasn’t sure if Patrick would want a sandwich or not, and what kind he’d prefer in his current condition. He pulled over to text him and found a whole slew of messages from Patrick waiting for him already.

_What time are you heading back?_  
_Might need you to take over here for the afternoon_  
_Are you on the road yet?_  
_Call me when you get this pls_  
_Where are you??_

David hit the Call Sender button. “Oh my god, what?” he asked, at the same time as Patrick said “It’s not a big deal, don’t panic.”

David began to panic. “What’s going on? Are you—are you, you know, is it happening early, or—”

“No, it’s fine,” Patrick said shortly. “I just haven’t had to deal with being around this many weird smells before, when I was about to change. It’s kind of overwhelming, is all.”

“Our store does not have _weird smells_,” David informed him, highly offended. “It’s a carefully calibrated fragrance experience. I don’t even put products near each other until I’m sure they’ll harmonize.”

“That’s probably true if you’re fully human. When you’re part canine, it’s like being trapped in a slow-motion explosion at a perfume factory. I had to close up shop and walk home—I’m nearly back now.”

“You closed the store?” David was aghast, not so much because he objected, but because Patrick was normally pretty passionate about not closing the store for any reason during normal business hours.

“Temporarily,” Patrick said, with an edge on his voice. “Because you’ll be getting back there any minute now to reopen it. Unless you’re calling me right now from that ice cream parlour in Elm Falls. Are you?”

“No!” 

“Good. I’m going to pack up my camping gear and head out as soon as you bring the car back. I’ll drop you back at the store on my way up to the trailhead. Don’t stop for sandwiches. We’ve got plenty of leftovers from last night at home in the fridge.”

Patrick hung up before David could do more than sputter lightly at his tone of voice. Werewolves, apparently, were snippy. 

*

When he got back to the apartment, David found Patrick waiting by the door with his gear bag. 

“Let’s go,” Patrick said, getting up. “I packed a Tupperware for you with some lunch. You can eat at the store after I drop you off.”

“Why _are_ you taking off today so suddenly, anyway?” David said. “Why the change of plans? What’s the big rush?”

Patrick looked tense, all along his forearms as far as David could see them with the sleeves of his hoodie pushed up almost to his elbows. His neck and jaw looked tense, too. “Just...changed my mind,” he said, entirely failing to sound casual. “It might rain tomorrow. I’d rather get up into the hills and make camp tonight.”

David studied him. “You’re kind of worrying me,” he said. “Is something wrong? Is this not the way things usually go?”

“David,” said Patrick. “Can we just go, please?”

“In a minute! Sorry. I need the bathroom first, okay? I had two huge glasses of iced tea at Mindy’s; I’m about to burst.” David leaned in to give him a quick kiss as he brushed past, but Patrick inhaled sharply and flinched away.

“Whoa,” David said, stopping in his tracks. “What the hell?”

“Nothing. It’s nothing.” Patrick was crowded up against the wall, pulling back from David as far as he could go.

“I’m not allowed to touch you now?” David leaned in a little closer to him, but Patrick looked so miserable that he instantly took a step back. “Okay,” he said. “Wow.”

“David, it’s not—don’t read anything into it, okay? It’s just...look, you don’t know what this feels like. It’s kind of a lot.”

“A lot in what way?”

“Okay, well, for one thing, you _reek,_” Patrick snapped, and David took another step back. “God. I’m sorry. You did ask. I don’t mean you, I mean...what are you wearing, perfume or something?”

David frowned and sniffed the inside of his right wrist. “Oh. Coconut musk salt scrub. And probably a few other things, too; I did a lot of product sampling today.”

“Yeah, I can tell. Wash it off, okay? If you actually are going to the bathroom now.”

“I am,” David said defensively, and went.

He washed his hands all the way up to the elbows, using unscented soap; after a moment’s consideration, he washed his face and neck, too. He thought about a quick shower, but Patrick would murder him if he heard it running. 

When he came back out, Patrick was standing over by the open door, waiting, jingling the keys in his hand. “Ready?” 

David went over to him but didn’t walk out. He stopped in front of Patrick, not touching him, and held up his wrist a few inches from his nose. “Better?”

Patrick shut his eyes and crowded himself up against the door frame, looking pained.

“What? I still reek? I did wash!”

“I know you did,” Patrick said, but he didn’t move.

“Patrick!” David didn’t back down this time. “I know you don’t want to talk about this, but it’s getting weird. Are you okay? I don’t want you careening off up into the mountains by yourself while you’re having some sort of weird meltdown.”

Patrick laughed, a dry little ironic sound; it didn’t sound like him. “You think you could stop me? Go on. Try.” 

David shook his head, bewildered. “I don’t...okay. This is what I mean, see; you’re not...this isn’t right.”

“I know it’s not!” Patrick’s voice cracked. “I’m sorry. David, I’m...I don’t know what this is, honestly. It hasn’t been like this any of the other times, and I don’t want you to be...I don’t know if I can…”

He looked so frightened that it made David ache. “Hey,” he said, “It’s okay. It’s going to be okay,” and reached for him; he couldn’t help it. He put his left hand up to Patrick’s face, and Patrick shut his eyes tightly and groaned and turned his face toward David’s wrist, breathing in the scent of it, and then in the next second he had David pinned up against the other side of the door frame, nose buried in his neck, making guttural little whimpering sounds as he sniffed at him, every muscle tense. 

_Oh,_ David thought, and his head emptied out; he felt oddly calm, although his heart was racing. “It’s okay,” he said again, and Patrick gave that ironic little laugh and thrust his whole body up against David’s and bit down on his neck, hard enough to make him yelp. 

Patrick backed off just a fraction, just enough that the amount of space between them wasn’t zero anymore. His hands were still fisted in David’s sweater, and he was breathing like he’d been running. His pupils were huge, his jaw set. _“Fuck,”_ he said, sounding desperate, and pulled David away from the door frame, kicked the door shut, and walked him backwards over to the bed. Then he shoved David down and hesitated for only a moment before falling onto him, nose in his neck again, inhaling him in greedy sobbing gasps.

David’s heart was hammering swiftly now, but he wasn’t afraid, not very. Patrick was thrusting and trembling on top of him, hands fumbling to get up inside David’s sweater, finding skin, grasping at him and releasing him and grabbing elsewhere, seemingly trying to get hold of every inch of his body all at once. David got his hands on Patrick’s hips and pulled them in hard against his own, wondering how they were ever going to detach enough to get their clothes off or at least undone. He reached up blindly to Patrick’s face again, not even knowing what he was doing anymore, and it was another shock when Patrick gasped in a different way and reared back away from him.

“What?” David said, panting for breath. “What’s happening?”

“I don’t know,” Patrick said, sitting up and touching his face, then looked down at David’s right hand. “Oh.”

David followed his gaze and lifted his hand, turning it back and forth; it was just his hand. “Did I do something wrong?” 

“No, it’s just...your rings.”

David frowned. Patrick loved his rings. They were smooth; they never caught on anything; they were solid silver... He gave a disbelieving laugh. “Really? That one’s not a myth?”

“I guess not,” Patrick said, rubbing at his jawline and over his ear where David’s hand had cupped him.

“I’m sorry,” David said. He got up, awkwardly, and sat on the edge of the bed, not too close to Patrick. “Did it, um, burn you, or...I can take them off,” he offered quickly, starting to pull at the ones on his index finger, but Patrick stopped him.

“Don’t,” he said. “It’s fine. I’m not burned or anything. It just feels like...like biting down on tinfoil with a filling or something, like I’d do anything to get away from it.” 

“I don’t want to hurt you,” David insisted. “Let me take them off. I’ll do whatever you need.”

“You hurting me is not what we need to worry about here.” Patrick sounded like every word was strangling him. “I’m really glad it made me stop, actually, because...David. I haven’t felt like this before. It’s never been like this. I’ve never—I don’t know what I’ll do. That’s why I wanted to leave a day early; I don’t know what it’ll be like, if I stay.” 

It was really difficult not to reach over and hold him, pet him, reassure him, but David made himself keep his distance. “Okay, I get that this is new,” he told Patrick. “For both of us. But, I mean, you’ve, um, heard about it, or read about it, what it’s like for werewolves in heat, right? Because I have. And I’m here for that, I’m telling you; I’m into it, okay? I’m not just saying that. I’m actually...really into it. A lot.”

“I know you are,” Patrick said, shutting his eyes for a moment and leaning toward David a little. He was sniffing like he could smell David’s arousal; probably he could. David felt himself begin to grow hard again at the thought of it. He bit his lip and tried to focus on what Patrick was saying, because it sounded important to him. “The thing is, though. What happens when you decide you’re not so into it after all, or you’ve had enough and need a break, and I can’t stop? I’ve never been in heat, not like this, so I don’t know what it’s going to feel like once we start, or if I’ll still even know what’s going on. I might be totally out of control.”

David tried to imagine not being into it and wanting a break, and couldn’t; he tried to imagine Patrick needing him so much that he wasn’t able to stop, and his cock gave a twitch, growing harder. But he was willing to concede that it might not be completely awesome, in the highly unlikely event that he couldn’t handle it. He could definitely imagine that it wouldn’t be awesome for _Patrick,_ to think that he was hurting David and helpless to stop it. Okay, yes: in Patrick’s position, that would suck.

“Then I’ll silver bullet you, I guess,” David said, holding up his right hand. “You said it feels like you’d do anything to get away from it, right?”

Patrick reached up and touched the rings, tentatively at first, and winced. He held his fingertips against them for a few moments, looking like he was forcing himself to keep his hand on a burning stove, then snatched his fingers away and shook them. “Maybe?” he said, clearly weakening. He leaned in again, closer, brushed his nose against David’s neck, and inhaled with a deep shudder.

David thought he knew what Patrick needed, but he had to say it out loud so that they’d both hear it. “I’ll be the one in control,” he said, very firmly. “I want this. I want to give you what you need. All of it.” 

He stripped off his sweater and t-shirt and moved up to press himself very deliberately into Patrick’s space, pulling Patrick’s head down against his neck with his left hand. Patrick took a long trembling dragging breath and then, finally, let it out in a harsh snarl of desperate need. He pushed David back down on the bed and fell upon him hungrily.

*

At first, it wasn’t that different from any wild bout of really good sex. It was a bit like the early days of their relationship, when frantic desperation was just par for the course: all the _I’ve been longing to touch another man this way for years_ sex, and _we’ve finally got a door with a lock between us and the world_ sex, and _I never thought I’d find anyone who’d look at me the way you do_ sex. Shaking, gasping, half-dressed, half-wild thrusting against each other; David had almost forgotten that this had once been their normal. 

It wasn’t that their current sex life had become sedate, or boring. Far from it. But it usually had a more measured pace than this, certainly. It had been a while, David realized, since he’d heard Patrick groan like he might actually die if he didn’t get his cock inside some part of David’s body soon. 

David had done his research. He knew what was going to happen, and he knew he probably wasn’t really ready for it. Patrick was half wild with the heat hormones or whatever coursing through his system, so it was down to David to be the controlled one, holding Patrick off with his hands or his mouth until he could prep himself, at least with fingers and as much lube as he could get into himself.

He didn’t want to wait. He felt as desperate as Patrick sounded. They’d managed to get the rest of their clothes off, somehow, gasping half-phrases into each other’s mouths as they did so, _want you so much I can’t, David I need, I know, please, please let me, oh god I need, I need,_ and it was such a turn-on that David could hardly break away for long enough to fumble for the lube and jam it into Patrick’s shaking hands.

Patrick stared at it dumbly. “You want me to,” he said, sitting back.

“Yeah,” David gasped out, getting over onto all fours. “Fuck me. Fuck me, Patrick.” _Fuck me like an animal,_ he thought of saying, with a sudden hysterical laugh welling up in his chest, but he wasn’t at all sure Patrick would find it funny just then. “I mean, use the lube, please,” he said, in a less sexy voice. “Like, a lot of it, probably? But yeah. Do me, I want you to, I need you inside me, please, please give it to me now.”

“Oh god.” Patrick’s voice broke, and David looked back over his shoulder to find him looking miserably torn. “I don’t...I don’t want to hurt you, what if it’s too…”

David hung his head down for a moment and cursed silently in frustration at his fiancé’s scruples. Then he sat up again and kissed Patrick, very sweetly and gently, and after a minute of that, when Patrick stopped shaking and swayed toward him hungrily again, he got a hand around Patrick’s cock and stroked him once, up and down, very firmly.

Patrick groaned into his mouth and bucked against him, and David took the lube from his unresisting hand and got the cap off, got a good messy palmful of it, then took Patrick’s hand again, still kissing him, and poured the slickness over Patrick’s fingers and guided them down to where he needed them to be. 

“I can take it,” he promised, and gave an enthusiastic moan as Patrick slid an index finger up into him. “More—another one, please, please, oh—oh, yes, there. I want it, all of it, I’m so ready for you—” He waited until Patrick had three fingers inside him and he was undulating greedily against them, working himself on them, and then he pulled away suddenly and got onto all fours again. “Patrick, _now_,” he begged, and this time Patrick was too far gone to hesitate. 

“Fuck,” he growled, hands skidding over David’s back, trying to get purchase on his skin with slickened fingers. “I need to, yes, let me—” Patrick was thrusting already, hard and slick against David’s balls, his perineum, and David was afraid he was going to come before he could enter him, but a moment later he was gasping at the shock and heat of Patrick’s cock pressing at his rim, and then it was pushing inside, so hard, so hot, so impossible and right and huge as his body took it in. 

“Yes,” he gasped. “That’s it, come on, I can take it, take you, please keep going, there, _yes_.”

“Oh god,” Patrick cried out, hoarse and harsh. “I can’t. I can’t, David, I’m going to, I have to—” He thrust, _hard_, driving all the breath out of David’s body: one, two, three perfect searing pushes, and with the third one another cry tore itself out of Patrick’s throat, a wordless agonized groan, and his hands scrabbled at David’s hips, trying to pull them even closer, drive himself further in as he began to come.

Maybe it wasn’t going to happen the way he’d read about, the knot thing, David thought, in the long heated moment that followed. Patrick was still hard and throbbing as he came inside him, draped over David’s back, gasping out little sobs of breath and pressing bruises into his hipbones, but it didn’t feel out of the ordinary in any way. Maybe the websites were a joke; maybe Alexis was having him on; maybe Patrick really wasn’t that kind of werewolf. Then David felt it, the first oddness of something growing and swelling just inside him, and he inhaled, eyes going wide, biting his lip so he wouldn’t cry out at the sensation.

Patrick let out a soft, startled _oh_ and tried to pull away, but David pushed back against him, reaching back to try and stop him from moving. “Don’t,” he said. “Let it, it’s okay, it’s okay, just let it happen, it’s...it’s good, you can do it, just don’t move.”

“Oh,” Patrick said again. “This feels...this feels weird.”

“I know,” David said, trying to keep his voice calm and unpanicked. “It’s okay, though. You won’t hurt me if you don’t move.” He hoped it was true. It didn’t hurt _much_; it felt like he was being stretched from the inside, but if he didn’t tense up it actually felt...sort of good? He shifted a little and gasped. 

“David?” Patrick’s hands skimmed quickly up his sides and back down. “God. I didn’t know it would feel like this. Are you okay, are you sure? I don’t think I can…” He pulled back again, just slightly, in a testing sort of way, and made another startled, frightened sound, which was good; it masked the noise David had to choke back.

“Yeah, don’t do that,” David said tightly, glad that Patrick couldn’t see his face. “That...that hurts, if you...it’s too big, you can’t—just stay still.”

“I...okay.” Patrick’s whole body was trembling, against him and around and inside him. “I don’t know how long this lasts. Are you really okay?”

“Mm,” David said, because Patrick was still, impossibly, swelling inside him, and the alien feeling of it stole all his breath away. “God. It’s big. It’s really big, it feels…” He shifted just slightly again, and it was pressing into his prostate now. “Oh,” he said. _“Oh._ Patrick. Oh my god.”

“I’m sorry,” Patrick said, sounding broken again. “God, David, I’m so sorry, I can’t, what can I—”

“No, it’s _good_,” David got out, before Patrick could flagellate himself to death. “Shut up, it’s good, it feels so fucking—god, Patrick, this is...you should know how this feels, it’s right _there,_ I’m gonna—” He shifted his weight onto his left arm and flailed around with his right until he got hold of Patrick’s hand and moved it to his cock, which was probably going to be a better convincer at the moment than anything he could get out in words just then.

“Oh, fuck,” Patrick said, when he touched him. “Okay. Let me,” he said, and began to stroke him.

David lost his mind.

The only thing he could compare it to was being fisted, which he’d only ever done while completely high. It was a lot better than that, though, because unlike a fist, the knot was smooth, and it hadn’t had to work its way into him at that size, so it was all of the pleasure with almost none of the pain. And the full length of Patrick’s cock was still inside him, too, filling him all the way up, so deep and so hard; when David came, with all of that delicious heavy blood-hot pressure against every sweet spot he had, it was almost enough to make him black out. He was making loud sounds, he was dimly aware, a lot of them; he hoped he wasn’t scaring Patrick, but Patrick seemed to making quite a bit of noise as well. He hoped, wildly, that the neighbours weren’t home, they wouldn’t be home now, would they, was it still afternoon, or—

“David, shhhh,” Patrick was saying now, stroking his side, kissing his neck and his ear and the side of his face. “Here, let’s—can you move? I can’t pull out yet; I don’t want to try, but let’s just—” He got his arm across David’s chest and took his weight, rolling them both over onto their sides so that he could spoon him, still inside him, and it was better, once they got settled. It was too much sensation, now, with the aftershocks of orgasm still battering at him and the knot relentlessly hard where he felt so soft and oversensitized. 

With all of the endorphins and adrenaline racing through his system, and with the strangeness of it all, David felt drugged. Surreal. He hoped Patrick was coping all right and not freaking out, and he wanted to check in with him, but he couldn’t speak just yet. _The werewolf’s knot subsides after ten to thirty minutes,_ he remembered reading. _Refractory periods during the heat cycle are abnormally brief, and coitus can take place anywhere from three to twelve times, if not more, within a twenty-four hour period._ Holy fuck. 

“Hey,” Patrick whispered into the dampness of his neck. He had his arms wrapped around David, one hand on his chest and the other on his stomach, slowly stroking up and down, playing with the coarse line of hairs on his belly. “Are you okay? Your heart’s really racing.”

“I’m good,” David assured him. “It’s, um, a lot? But it doesn’t hurt, I swear. It’s just…”

“Yeah,” Patrick agreed. “It is.” He breathed into David’s throat again, exhaled in a slight moan, then kissed him there. “I didn’t know. I didn’t know it would be like this.” 

“Does it feel...really amazing? What’s it like?”

Patrick didn’t answer at first. He kissed David’s neck a few more times. “Weird,” he said finally. “It, um, it kind of hurts, sort of, and it feels too good at the same time, and for a while I was terrified my cock was going to explode, and also scared to death I was going to, you know, damage you, and I need you so much I can’t breathe and I don’t know how I’m going to survive if you move away one millimeter. It’s. Yeah. A lot.”

“I won’t move away one millimeter,” David promised him, and put his left hand on top of Patrick’s, the one on his chest, over his still-racing heart. “I mean, I actually don’t think I can. But I don’t want to. I’m here. I’m really glad you let me...that we’re doing this. Together. Okay?”

Patrick nodded into his neck, but didn’t say anything more, just clung onto him hard and breathed him in. “It’s going to happen again,” he said after a while, in a low voice. “Probably...more than once. You know that, right?”

“I know,” David said, stroking the back of Patrick’s hand with his thumb. “It’s okay.”

“Will you, uh, do something for me, the next time?”

“What?”

Patrick reached out to find David’s right hand, the one he’d been keeping carefully away from their entangled bodies. He touched the silver rings and drew back at once. “Try and force me to stop, next time,” Patrick told him. “I mean, before it gets...at the beginning of it, will you try? I’ll feel better if I know you can make me stop if you need to.”

David nodded. He’d feel better too, he guessed; he hadn’t realized it until now. “I’ll try,” he agreed. “But if I can’t—”

“Then you need to leave,” Patrick said sharply. “As soon as...whatever you need to do to get away, you have to just go. Or even if you’ve had enough and you just want to stop, you have to promise me you’ll get out the door and go drive away. We’ll sort it out when...when I’m myself again.”

“Will you also sort it out with your neighbours when they see me fleeing naked from the premises?” David teased.

“Promise,” Patrick said. “Please promise me you wouldn’t just stay and let me…”

A werewolf with a conscience. A suppressed wolf. David knew Patrick was right, and sensible, and good, but it also made David’s heart seize up a little, thinking about him trying so hard to do the right thing, standing between David and the wolf inside him.

“I promise,” David said. He lifted Patrick’s hand to his lips and kissed it. “Let’s rest, okay? I don’t know if I can fall asleep, but let’s just rest, before the next time.” 

Patrick nodded and sighed and relaxed a fraction against him, and after a while his breathing slowed. After an even longer while the knot loosened, softened, and David winced at the slippery feeling inside him, but it couldn’t be helped. He wasn’t ready to move, not yet, not if it meant Patrick would think he was trying to get away.

*

David must have fallen asleep, because it was dark in the room the next time he opened his eyes, and Patrick was hard again and trembling against his back. 

“David,” he whispered. “It’s...it’s starting again, I need, I need—” He gulped and let out a high whine. “Oh god.” His hands were grasping at David’s hips again, pressing hard into the bones and then releasing as if he were forcing himself to let go, only to clamp down again a moment later. “I can’t,” he sobbed. “David.”

David was tired, and disoriented, and sticky and sore, but he didn’t want to make Patrick stop. The idea of Patrick holding him down and making him take that knot again had him awake and halfway to hard again already. 

But he’d promised, and he knew it would hurt Patrick more in the long run if he didn’t do this at least once, to prove he could. So he turned over to face Patrick and got his right hand between them and pressed his splayed fingers right into Patrick’s chest, pushing him away.

Patrick let out a little hurt howl and jerked back, and David used the moment to get away, off the other side of the bed, and move a few steps toward the front door. 

“Yes,” said Patrick, blinking, gasping for air, looking relieved. “Thank you.” He was lying on his back in the middle of the bed and rubbing at his chest, wincing and grinning at the same time. “That was...really unpleasant.”

“I’m so glad,” David said. “It was bad for me, too, baby. Can I come back now?”

Patrick hesitated. “Do you...are you sure you want to?”

“Let me get a glass of water first,” David said, because he actually was slightly dying of thirst as well as curious: How strong was Patrick’s compulsion to fuck right now, at this stage of heat? Would he follow David over to the kitchen? How far away could he get before the wolf would need to chase down his mate and lay claim? He glanced back over his shoulder to see if Patrick seemed to be struggling. He had his eyes closed and looked tense. David took his time drinking the water, then a second glass, and then he poured a third glass and brought it over to the bed. 

“Thanks,” Patrick said gratefully. “Uh, maybe don’t hand it to me. Put it down on the table.”

David did it and stepped back, and watched as Patrick gulped the water and put the glass back, watched the tension in his jaw as he made himself lie back against the bed again. 

“Good boy,” he said wryly, and Patrick shook his head and let out a surprised whuff of a laugh. His cock was hard, and looking at it made David salivate; he wanted it in his mouth. He got back in bed and touched it instead, encircling it lightly with his left fingers and skimming up and down its length once, and Patrick shut his eyes, looking pained; he shivered and keened a little, deep in his throat.

“You’re _such_ a good boy,” David told him, and climbed up on top of him. He still felt wet and stretched and messy; they’d never cleaned up after the last round, but he wasn’t in the mood to care; he wanted to be filthy. “Look at you, being so good, when you want it so bad.”

“David,” Patrick begged, eyes still shut tight, hands clutching at the sheets. He was so hard, David could almost see him throbbing; he looked like he was going to come the moment David touched him again. Maybe even sooner. David leaned down and licked around the tip of his cock, and Patrick groaned and then seized him by the ribs, dragging David roughly up his body and actually lifting him up, pulling him into position.

“Whoa,” David said, and hovered his right hand over Patrick’s chest again, not touching him, just keeping him at bay. He felt a little badly about it when Patrick flinched and drew back, but not that badly. “Is this...are you getting some kind of werewolf superstrength now? Is that a thing that happens?” It probably was; it sounded vaguely familiar. David slightly regretted, now, having put most of his focus on the parts of the webpages that talked about heat-sex and almost none on the parts that dealt with other characteristics of the transitional phase. 

“I guess?” Patrick said. His pupils were almost freakishly dilated now. _Such big eyes you have,_ David wanted to say, but Patrick sounded quavery and not in the mood for teasing. “Uh, like I said. It hasn’t been quite like this before. But from what I’ve read. It’s a thing, yeah.”

“Hmm,” David mused. He was reaching for the lube again, pouring himself a palmful of it. “Maybe I’ll stay on top this time. Okay if I drive?”

Patrick nodded. He looked different, David thought, not just his eyes, but what was behind them—something feral that wanted. Something profoundly un-Patrick. Or was it, really? Was it something that was always there, that he usually kept locked down too tightly to ever see the light of day?

It should have been scarier than it was, the thought of being wanted—needed—by that primal white-hot thing. David was kind of fucked up, though, he was well aware; he mostly just felt triumph, and curiosity, and an answering greed. He leaned over and kissed Patrick, biting down playfully on his lower lip, then nudging up his chin to shift the bite to his throat. Patrick exhaled forcefully, squirming beneath him and thrusting his hips up, driving the hard ridge of his cock into David’s belly. David reached down between them and carefully drew his slick left hand up the length of him. 

“Give me that knot again,” he said. “I want it,” and sank down onto him, sighing with satisfaction as Patrick filled him to the core. 

*

David was going to write his own webpage on How to Survive Having Sex with Your Werewolf Partner, he decided, half an hour later. Or maybe a short book, although publication and distribution might be an issue. **Chapter Three: Preferred Positions for Maximum Comfort While Knotting; Section A: Anal. **_Tip #8: Think again before riding your werewolf, unless you have thighs of steel; remember that you’re going to be holding this position for a good thirty minutes, if not more._ He couldn’t drape himself down onto Patrick’s chest, or they’d both break. They tried maneuvering around onto their sides, with a lot of _ow, wait_ and _I can’t_ and _nope, that’s not working_; at last, they ended up in a sort of X, and it was so awkward that David started to laugh and couldn’t stop until he saw that it was actually causing Patrick real pain.

“I’m sorry,” he said. “It is funny, though.”

“Hilarious,” Patrick said. “Right up until the part when my dick pops like a balloon.”

This seemed infeasible to David, but just the mental image was so unpleasant that he immediately subsided. 

“Patrick,” he said, wishing they were spooning like the last time. “Can I ask you something?”

“I can’t exactly stop you right now,” Patrick said, sounding edgy.

“Okay, never mind.”

“Sorry,” Patrick said, after a bit. “You can ask. I might not know the answer.”

David still hesitated, but he really wanted to know. “Can I...see you? When you’re a wolf?”

“I’m not an _invisible_ werewolf, as far as I know,” Patrick told him. “So, technically, you can.”

“Will you let me see you, then? Would you know it was me? Or would you...would it be dangerous?”

Patrick was quiet for a very long time.

“I don’t know,” he said, and then he was quiet again. “I...I don’t know, David.”

“Well,” David said. “I do want to. That’s all.”

It was nighttime now. David could see the moon from the window, so close to full. 

“Let’s just focus on getting through the night,” Patrick said finally. “I’m hoping this will, uh, calm down after sunrise? And then I need to get up to the mountains.”

“Do you?”

“Yes,” Patrick said, sounding definite now. “I need to.”

David didn’t push it. Werewolves needed to hunt, probably, or something gross like that; he’d have to read up on it more. They probably needed to run around a lot and pee on things, marking their territory, chasing things. Other wolves, maybe. That was a new thought.

“Patrick,” he said. “Are there other wolves, when you go up in the mountains? Do you guys have like a wolf hangout up there? Is the full moon some kind of wolf rave party, or, I don’t know, a big club scene?”

“Oh my god, no. I mean...yes, there are other wolves, sometimes. I can smell them, but you can’t...no. I steer way, way clear if I can tell there’s a pack nearby. You don’t want to mess with that if you’re a loner.”

“Is that what you are? A lone wolf, huh?” He was teasing, but Patrick didn’t laugh.

“I guess,” he said. “I don’t...I haven’t done it much, you know, especially not here.”

This gave David all kinds of pause. Patrick wasn’t a lone wolf type. Patrick _loved_ all his little group activities; he was always joining things. Baseball teams and acting groups and small business owner associations—it took up half his weeknights, if not more. It would have been irritating; it _was_ irritating sometimes, but he knew Patrick needed it, and David needed his alone time, so it usually worked out. 

Maybe he was different as a wolf? Maybe he didn’t need a pack? But David felt instinctively that this wasn’t true.

“You like it, though,” he said, after a while. “You like being up there. Being a wolf.”

“I do, yeah,” Patrick said slowly. “It’s...simpler, I guess. It feels...yeah. I like it.”

David had the feeling they wouldn’t be having this conversation if they weren’t literally locked together, that Patrick would have found some excuse to get away from it. 

“I’ll stop now,” he said. “I like hearing about it, that’s all. I’m sort of jealous, I guess, maybe? It sounds like it would be nice.”

Now Patrick did give a short laugh. “Being outside, _sleeping_ outside for three nights, running, hunting, eating raw rodents...that sounds nice to you, huh? Who are you and what have you done with my fiancé?”

“Well, I assume I’d like all that stuff if I were a wolf!” David reached down and gently touched where they were joined. “I like this part, anyway. Now. I like it.”

“It’s not over yet,” Patrick reminded him.

“I like it so far.”

“Okay, David.” Patrick took his hand and laced their fingers together. “I mean, I’m glad. That’s good.”

David wanted to ask if he were enjoying it too, but was afraid of the answer; it wasn’t as though Patrick had any choice about what they were doing. He hoped it helped, anyway, for Patrick to know that at least one of them was into it.

“I like this too,” Patrick said, after another long, thoughtful silence. “It’s just. You know. Kind of scary. Not being in control of it.”

“But it feels good?” David needed to know. 

“David.” Patrick squeezed his fingers. “It feels amazing. You’re so...and you’re letting me...I can’t even tell you what it feels like.”

David squirmed slightly with satisfaction at this, then gasped at the feeling of Patrick shifting inside him; another little rill of pleasure crested over him. “Uh, likewise,” he said, and squeezed Patrick’s hand back. They fell into silence, then, holding hands until the next time.

*

When the next time came, they were tired. David was tired, at any rate. Doing it twice in one night wasn’t unheard of for them, and every now and then they got off three times, which always made him feel like a sex superhero, and he’d swan around the store the next day with an exaggerated limping gait and wince theatrically whenever he sat down or got up, just to watch Patrick turn flustered and flushed when he did it.

This wasn’t normal sex, though, and even twice had been strenuous. David realized right away that there was no way he was going to get hard again. He still didn’t want to stop, though, not at all; he was endlessly fascinated when he woke up to find Patrick swearing quietly and desperately, hot and hard against his hip. 

“Hi,” he said softly, turning to face Patrick against the pillow, and reached down to touch him.

Patrick jerked against his fingers and moaned, his eyes wide and wild in the dim light. He shut them, and swallowed, and tried to take a deep breath, but it caught in his chest as a growl. “I’m sorry,” he said. “I’ve got to...I can’t make it stop.”

“Hey, shh,” David said, reaching back up and cupping Patrick’s face with his left hand. “It’s fine. You don’t need to stop it. Do you need to fuck? Or do you just need to come?”

“I...I don’t know,” Patrick said, trembling against him. “I need _you_.” 

“Well,” said David. “I can make you come; I’ll make you come all night. You can fuck me again, too, in a little while, but let’s try this for now,” he suggested, and slid down the bed to lick and nuzzle at Patrick’s cock.

“Oh god,” Patrick groaned. He couldn’t quite keep his hips still, it seemed, but he was really trying, holding back as much as he could. The wolf in heat probably wanted to grab David by the scruff of his neck and fuck his mouth until it bled, but neither of them was going to allow that to happen; David felt pretty safe. He scraped his teeth lightly against Patrick’s foreskin, making him yelp and twitch. Then he gentled the same spot with the flat of his tongue, wrapped his left hand around the base, and jacked it a little while he licked and sucked. 

“It’s not enough,” Patrick gasped. “I need. Oh god, I need to be _in_ you, I can’t, David, I can’t I can’t—”

“Yeah, you can, baby,” David told him. “You’re doing so good; just let me,” he said, and sucked the first two fingers of his own left hand, getting them good and wet before bringing them down between Patrick’s legs, brushing them against his hole and then letting his index finger dip inside and back out. He took the whole head of Patrick’s cock into his mouth at the same time and worked it with his lips and tongue as he continued to finger his rim. He wasn’t about to try deep-throating Patrick right now; he didn’t want to find out if the knot would rise if Patrick came suddenly in his throat, or test Patrick’s ability not to lose control and choke him inadvertently. He wished he’d taken the time to find some real lube, because Patrick was clenching hard on his fingertips, whimpering and trying to fuck himself on them, but David didn’t want to push them all the way inside with just spit. Instead he scissored them gently and kept working Patrick’s cockhead with his tongue in a good fast rhythm, patiently, until Patrick cried out loudly and clutched frantically at David’s shoulders and began to come. 

“Better?” David said, when he’d swallowed, and swallowed, and stroked Patrick through the aftershocks. He was sore, he realized, not just his jaw or his ass but sore all over, and it cost him a little effort to heave himself back up the bed and collapse on the pillow again.

“Um,” Patrick said, shifting restlessly. “I’m still…”

David reached to touch him again; he was still hard. “Oh,” he said. “Wow. Okay.” He thought about it for a few moments, and then he sat up and found the lube again and pushed some into himself, and turned over onto his side, pressing his back against Patrick.

“Like this,” he said. “Let’s do it like this, this time.”

Patrick reached around to touch David’s cock, which was mostly soft. “But you’re not…”

“I don’t have to be. I can still want it, even if I can’t come again yet. I’m just going to make you do all the work this time; that’s fair, right?”

“Mm,” said Patrick. “I don’t know.” He didn’t sound sure, but he was slowly rutting against David’s lower back as if he couldn’t help it, which he probably couldn’t, poor thing. David had a flash of wishing he could feel it too, this bone-deep insatiable frenzied need to fuck; he wished he knew the magic words that would make Patrick realize it was okay to give in to it.

“I want it,” David said. “I’ll stop you if you hurt me. But I don’t think you will. I’m still so open from the last time, and the time before; I’m all wet and messy and open for you, you can fuck me, use me, please—” He drew his knees up a little and reached back to guide Patrick into place. When the tip of Patrick’s cock touched him, he made a helpless sound, a little _ah_ of pain and want intermingled. He was so sensitive there, so stretched, and he felt himself flutter and clench against the intrusion, but his hips were twitching, pushing back to get more of Patrick inside him again. He really was going to get to do this, make Patrick use him, and the thought was so exciting that he couldn’t stop the whining, begging noises that were coming out of him now. “Please,” he said. “Please, Patrick, give it, I want you in me.”

_“Fuck,”_ Patrick said, quavering. He set his teeth gently into David’s nape, making him shiver, and then bit down a little harder as he pushed into him again.

*

They both slept, then, or possibly passed out. There was only one more time after that, near dawn, and David hardly knew what was happening, he was so tired and raw and filthy. He was only awake enough to roll over onto his stomach this time and say, “Yes, you can do it, I can take it, one more time, come on,” and to feel satisfied that Patrick was finally too destroyed himself to protest. It hurt, but it was a delicious, shivery kind of hurt, and David gave himself up entirely to the wanton pleasure of being a dirty limp thing that Patrick could plunge himself into and use, and use, and use until there was nothing more in him to give. 

Patrick was raw, too, probably; he had to be. When he came, he cried out sharply as if it pained him this time, and he groaned in what sounded like utter exhausted despair as the knot rose again and sealed them together. It didn’t last nearly as long this time, David thought, or maybe it was just that he blacked out or fell asleep again and couldn’t tell.

*

The next time David woke, it was fully light but still much, much, much too early, and someone was shaking him by the shoulder and shoving a glass of something right in his face, which was deeply uncalled for. 

“Hey,” Patrick said. “Come on, just drink it and then I’ll leave you alone, I promise.”

David was annoyed, and not only because he didn’t want to wake up for another six hours at least. He was annoyed because Patrick was supposed to be totally wrecked and destroyed, and David had been planning on waking up before him for once and making him a light, easily digestible breakfast (toast, he could make toast) and feeding it to him along with sips of juice and maybe giving him a sponge bath while he whimpered softly and didn’t know where he was. 

“What time is it,” David said, and took the glass and drained it rapidly, even though it was some of Patrick’s grapefruit juice, which he wasn’t a fan of. 

“Eight,” said Patrick. He was freshly showered and wearing a crisp t-shirt and jeans. “You can go back to sleep. Unless you want some breakfast?”

“Ew, no. You smell good,” David mumbled resentfully. He hated to think how he must smell. The bed felt like a swamp.

Patrick leaned over and kissed him on the temple and then got up and took a step away. “You smell like fresh-cut grass on the ballfield on the first day of summer,” he told David. “With someone firing up the grill in the background. I can’t get close to you. I’ll be right back in bed if I do.”

“Good,” David said, stretching out a hand toward him, forgetting it was the hand with the silver rings. He drew it back quickly. “Sorry.”

“I’m going to go put a sign on the store that says we’ll be opening at noon today,” Patrick said, stepping further back. “Then I’ll head out. You should take it easy this morning. I’m setting an alarm for eleven; think you can manage?”

“Oh.” David wanted to argue about this, but he really was too tired, and he wasn’t sure he’d survive it if Patrick did decide to get back into bed and needed to fuck him again. “You’re going, then? Up to your campsite?”

Patrick nodded. “I think I’d better.” He hesitated. “You’re okay? I didn’t break you last night?”

David looked up at him and gave him a slow, very sleepy, very debauched smile. “Last night,” he said, “was _unreal_.”

“Regrets?”

David laughed, which hurt. It felt like his entire body had been taken apart and put back together too hastily by someone with only a vague understanding of how humans were constructed. “I don’t think I can walk, but no. No regrets. Don’t go yet,” he begged.

“I have to.” Patrick hesitated, then moved back over to the bed and pressed a fast kiss to David’s lips, a soft gentle kiss, over much too quickly. “See you in three days.”

David sighed. “Stay safe, then,” he said. “Wait, why am I telling you to stay safe? What’s the right thing to say? Have fun? Don’t eat anyone?”

“I love you,” said Patrick, who almost always knew the right thing to say, and kissed him again, then moved away, backing toward the door.

“Yeah, that,” David said. “I mean. I love you, too.”

He closed his eyes, just for a moment, and when he opened them again, the damned alarm was going off and Patrick was long gone.


	2. Chapter 2

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> The second half of this story is all h/c and plot, so if you're looking for E-rated content, I'm afraid you're just going to have to reread Chapter 1! 
> 
> Warning for this chapter: some werewolf whump, with bloody injuries and wound-tending.

The wolf was huddled in the back alley behind the store in the shadow of the trash bins. David nearly missed seeing it when he went out to toss the day’s refuse while he was closing up shop. At first he wrinkled his nose at it, thinking that someone had disposed of their ratty old fur coat and hadn’t bothered to lift the bin lid and drop it inside. Then the coat moved, and he gave a yell, dropped the bags he was holding, and scrambled for the safety of the store’s open back door. He turned for a last confirming glance before going inside, though, and saw that the pile of ragged fur had raised its head and was looking at him with golden eyes.

David’s heart was pounding, and his voice came out in a startled, too-high squeak. “Patrick?” He didn’t know what made him say it. It wasn’t at all the way he’d expected Patrick-the-wolf to look. He couldn’t even tell that it _was_ a wolf, at this distance. But he knew, just the same, and his hand went to his throat. “Oh my god. Patrick, what the fuck? It’s you, isn’t it? Can you, um, can you understand me?”

The creature lowered its head and closed its eyes again, giving him no sign, and David doubted himself for a moment. Maybe he was foolishly talking to a stray dog, or a coyote—an awfully big one, though. A bear? He took a few cautious steps closer. It _was_ a wolf. A brindle wolf, in the back of their store, and it was the third night of the full moon; Patrick had been up in the mountains for two days. “Patrick,” he said again, and the wolf didn’t move, but it gave a low whine. As David approached, he saw that its coat was matted and dark with blood.

*

It was the fourth time that Patrick had transformed since he’d first come clean about his werewolf status to David. David had encouraged him to stop taking the suppressants, and Patrick had agreed to it, provisionally. 

“It’s not always convenient, for someone trying to run a business and be part of a community, to have to disappear entirely for three days a month with no explanation,” he’d pointed out to David.

“I guess my mother would have had something to say about that during Cabaret rehearsals,” David agreed. “And your baseball troupe.” Patrick had rolled his eyes at him; they both knew that David knew the word _team_, but it was an old, easy joke. “But a lot of times, it would probably be fine. More than once a year, definitely. And I’m not just saying that because I want more of the, um.” David spread his fingers and circled his hand in the air between them.

“Werewolf dicking?” Patrick had suggested.

“Oh my god. So crass. Tender animal-style lovemaking?”

“I don’t think I’d call it tender.” Patrick was smiling now. 

“Well, whatever you’d call it. Yes, I, uh, enjoyed that. Very...very much. But I also just like thinking of you getting to have this more often, because it seems like maybe it could be...good? For you? To let the wolf out a little more, so to speak, as well as, um, literally?” 

So Patrick’s solo camping trips had become a semi-regular occurrence. His pre-transformation heats weren’t always as intense as the first time had been; they both knew what to expect now, and it was deeply enjoyable but only occasionally overwhelming. David didn’t mind at all having a monthly sex marathon on the calendar. And he liked it when Patrick came home from his full-moon adventures, incredibly filthy and exhausted and looking more relaxed than David had realized Patrick could be. 

The last time, though, he’d also come home with a set of ugly scratches raking all down his right side, which he’d tried to conceal from David with absolutely no success. “It’s nothing,” he’d insisted, even when David got his shirt off and made him sit up on the store counter so he could clean the scratches with antiseptic after closing time. “I trespassed on someone else’s territory, I guess, and they took a swipe at me. I’m still figuring out the whole etiquette up there. There are probably scent-signs all over the place that I just don’t know how to read yet.” 

“Maybe you should find a different campsite,” David said, dabbing severely at the deepest of the scratches, making Patrick hiss and squirm. “Hold still. You’re the one who said it was nothing.”

“That stuff stings,” Patrick complained. “And I like my campsite. I’ve just got to prove to whoever else is up there that I’m not a threat. Are you almost done? I don’t see why this couldn’t wait until we got home. We’re putting on a show for everyone on their way to fish fry night at the cafe.”

“And I’m sure they appreciate it very much,” David said. “We could have taken care of it at home last night, or this morning, if you hadn’t tried to hide it from me like a six-year-old. What was your plan, to keep your shirt on during sex for the next few weeks?”

“Werewolves heal pretty fast,” Patrick said. “It would have probably only been a couple of days. Sorry, though. It was stupid of me.”

“Yes, it was.” David put the antiseptic cream down, cupped Patrick’s face in his hands, and gave him a series of fierce, hard little kisses before handing his shirt back to him. “Be more careful next time? Please?”

“I’ll be careful,” Patrick had promised. “It’ll be fine.”

*

The October evening light was dim in the alley behind the Apothecary, and the air was chill. David wrapped his arms around himself as he approached the heap of fur that might be Patrick, for warmth as much as for self-protection. He was ready to bolt back for the lighted safety and warmth of the open door behind him at any moment. Half his instincts were screaming that creeping up on a large, probably injured wild animal in an enclosed space was one of the stupider things he’d ever done. The other half had apparently decided that if it was Patrick, and in need of help, he didn’t care if he was about to get his throat ripped out. The wolf didn’t move again as he came closer, and he spoke to it, wanting it to hear his approach and the sound of his voice.

“Patrick,” he said. “Is that you? Can you hear me? Wag your tail or something if you understand me!”

The wolf gave a barely audible _whuff_, and its eyes opened briefly in a narrow yellow glare upward at him. David was right next to it now, and after another moment or two of hesitation he crouched down by the creature’s head. He could hardly believe the bulk of it, the hot heave of its pelt as it breathed. The heavy, musky scent. David stretched out a hand, hesitantly, and when he didn’t lose it, he rested it on the wolf’s head. It gave a low whine and pressed its skull up into the warmth of his palm, and David caught his breath. “It is you,” he said. “Holy fuck. Okay. Okay. Patrick. Oh my god. Oh my god oh my god _look_ at you. I mean, you know I’m not the biggest fan of dogs, but—”

One black-rimmed lip lifted to expose an impressive fang, and the wolf made a low sound in its throat, close enough to a snarl to make David jerk away and nearly fall over. 

“Sorry,” he said. “Sorry, honey, I know you’re not...but you’re...there’s all this blood; are you hurt? Can I see, is it bad, is there anything I can do?”

The wolf whined again and rolled partly onto its back, exposing its more lightly furred chest and belly, and David’s hands flew to his mouth. “Okay. Fuck. You’re, that’s…” He couldn’t think; it was too much blood. This was a 911 situation, but you couldn’t take a wolf to the ER, could you? “Oh my god, Patrick. This is bad. This is really bad. Can you, like, make yourself change back if you try really hard, or…”

Patrick’s low snarl was very nearly a bark this time.

“O_kay!_ I don’t know! We haven’t talked about this!” David flapped his hands. “Can I...okay, a...a vet, then, I guess, I’ll call Ted, is it okay if I call Ted? It’s after hours but I’m sure he’ll...Patrick?” David’s voice rose in panic. The wolf had rolled weakly back onto its side, and appeared unconscious. Were there werewolf blood transfusions, or did they have human blood, and did they even have the same blood types as humans… 

David fumbled for his phone with shaking hands and dialed the vet clinic, bypassing Ted’s cheery, punny voicemail and hitting 0 for the after-hours emergency line to his apartment extension, which David used sometimes to get through to Alexis when she was being a little B and ignoring her phone. Alexis answered, sounding distracted. “Hi, I’m sorry to say that Dr. Mullens is unavailable at this time,” she singsonged. David could hear the Real Housewives of Vancouver in the background. “If this is an actual veterinary emergency, please leave a message after the—oh, god, David, is that you?”

“Yes! Where’s Ted? Is he really not there? Where is he?”

“I knew it was you! Ugh! You’re doing that creepy breathing thing; seriously, David, it’s so gross.”

“I am not! What creepy breathing thing? I’m upset! Alexis! Where. Is. Ted?”

“What the hell, David? He’s driving home from a conference in Elm Springs right now, okay? God! He’ll be home in, I don’t know, probably half an hour or so? Why do you care?”

David’s mind raced. “Okay, listen,” he said. “I actually do have a _very serious_ emergency right now, and I need you to do me a massive favour. Do you have the car there?”

“No,” Alexis said. “Call Ted back in half an hour if you need him. I’m busy.”

“Shut up. I know you have it, and that show you’re watching has been in repeats for like six years now; you’ve seen it a million times. I need you to drive the car over to the store and park it around back, and before you say no again, let me just remind you about that time when you were fourteen and I drove all the way from San Francisco to that compound in Palm Springs and back in the middle of the night, and took you wig shopping in the Mission the next day on no sleep to help you cover for the fact that your head had been shaved by the leader of the—”

“Oh my fucking god,” said Alexis. “If you bring that story up one more time, I swear—Fine. I’ll bring the car. I can’t wait to see what this mysterious emergency is. It’s going to be like the time _you_ dragged _me_ from Gwyneth's house party in Montauk all the way to Brooklyn because you thought you might be in the photographs for that gallery opening and you couldn’t find your foundation, I bet.”

“No,” David said, “It’s not. Hurry,” and hung up on her. “Hey,” he said to Patrick-the-wolf. “We’re going to get you to Ted’s, okay? Can you hang in there for half an hour?” Patrick stirred and sighed. David sank his hand into the heavy ruff of fur around the wolf’s neck, marveling at the softness and depth of it. Patrick’s fur was warm in the chilly air, so he kept his hand right there and settled in to wait.

*

“That’s a wolf, David,” Alexis said. “David? That’s a _wolf_.”

“Okay, yes,” David agreed. “It is. But it’s not dangerous. It’s really badly hurt, okay, and I need you to help me—”

Alexis’s hands fluttered at chest level, then went rigid, fingers splayed in shock, and her eyes opened wide. “You asked me about werewolves,” she accused David. “That’s not...David, for real, tell me, is that…”

David thought for half a moment about denying everything and insisting that it was a random injured wild animal who had shown up at the store to collapse there for reasons unknown. “Okay fine yes it’s Patrick,” he said quickly. “Let’s skip to the part where you help me get him into the car so Ted can take care of him as soon as he gets back, all right?”

Alexis was already down on her knees in the dirty alleyway, crooning to the wolf and stroking it around the ears. “Oh, Patrick, sweetie, what happened to you?” she asked him. “Don’t worry, hon. We’re going to get you to Ted and he is going to fix you _right up_.” She booped the wolf’s nose twice for emphasis on her last two words.

“Ew,” said David, glad at the moment that Patrick was probably unconscious.

Alexis whipped her head around and glared at him. “Why are you just standing there like a big useless moose, David? Go get a blanket or something so we can roll him onto it and lift him up into the backseat!”

David dashed back into the store and grabbed the first blanket he could find, not caring that it was a pale ecru alpaca throw, all natural organic fibres, hand wash only. Patrick would probably have told him to find something that wasn’t going to cost the store ninety-five dollars, and David only hoped that Patrick would have the chance to lecture him about it later on.

It was a process, getting the wolf onto the blanket and then into the car, but Alexis was a lot stronger than she looked, luckily, and they accomplished it with a minimum of swearing at each other and only one or two pained wolf-moans. “The blanket was a good idea,” David said grudgingly, when they were on the road at last. “Um. Thanks.”

“Yeah. Well.” Alexis lifted her hair away from her face with the back of one hand, keeping her eyes on the road; she was driving very fast, but taking the turns carefully. “The things you learn when you’re transporting an entire pack of heavily sedated snow leopards illegally across the border, right?”

“You just make seventy percent of these up,” David complained, and Alexis pursed her lips and cut her eyes briefly away from the road to give him a smug little look. 

“Do I?” she said. “Uh-huh. Whatever helps you sleep at night, David.”

David turned to look back at Patrick—it was still difficult to think of this massive gorgeous creature as Patrick—and put a hand briefly on his side to reassure himself that he was still breathing. “Hey,” he said to Alexis, turning back. “When you used to work for Ted, I know you were just a receptionist—”

“Veterinary assistant,” Alexis corrected him.

“...Okay,” David said. “I know you mainly answered phones and kept the appointment schedule, uh, in your capacity as a veterinary assistant, but you probably saw a lot of hurt animals, right? Does this look, you know, super bad to you? Like, imminently life-threatening, or…”

“Oh,” said Alexis. “Um, it’s pretty dark, and I couldn’t see a lot, but he’s probably—it’s going to be fine, David. He’s going to be okay. Ted should be home by the time we get there, and he’s, like, brilliant with this stuff, I promise.”

David swallowed and nodded.

“He’ll be okay,” Alexis said again, and reached over to give David’s hand a quick squeeze, then put both hands back on the steering wheel and drove a little faster. 

*

David thought afterwards that it probably would have been amusing if he’d been able to take in the look on Ted’s face when he pulled into his driveway to find his girlfriend and her brother struggling and arguing over a large bundle of bloody wolf in the backseat of their car. As it was, he was mainly too relieved to see him to notice much about Ted’s initial reaction. 

Ted wasn’t nearly as thrilled as David was. “What—who—Jesus, Alexis, get back!” he cried, running over to them. “You too, David—get away! What are you doing? Is that a—”

“Yes, it’s a wolf, babe, we’re aware,” Alexis said, still tugging at the blanket while David pushed from the other end. “It’s not a mean one, though, and it needs help, so can you just go and scrub in, or whatever it is you do to get ready, and we’ll bring it in as soon as we can—oh my god, _shove_, David, you have to actually put some effort into this, you know, I can’t—”

“Well, I’m sorry, but I’m trying not to hurt him any more than I actually have to! He’s not a sack of potatoes, Alexis, so be _careful_, okay?”

“Oh, sure, that’s fine, we’ll just let him bleed to death all over the back seat, then, how’s that?” Alexis snapped.

Ted’s hands were in his hair. “Alexis!” He ran over and moved her away from the car. “That’s an injured wild animal! Are you crazy? It didn’t bite you, did it? There’s blood…” He patted her over anxiously.

“No, I’m fine, it’s fine,” Alexis tried to tell him, looking helplessly over Ted’s shoulder at David. “It’s a _friendly_ wolf. We...just trust me, okay? It’s not dangerous.”

“You can’t know that! David, seriously, please get away from the car. I’m calling animal control right now. They’ll take care of it.” He got out his phone.

David dropped his head and swore. “Ted, stop. It’s not a wolf, it’s...it’s a werewolf.”

Ted didn’t bat an eye; he kept dialing. “All the more reason,” he said. “You don’t want to get bitten, do you? The guys at animal control know how to handle these things. They can keep it in a holding cell until it transforms back, and then—”

“Okay,” David said, squeezing his eyes shut. “It’s Patrick. Ted. Put your phone away. This is Patrick. Patrick is a werewolf.”

Ted put his phone away. “Oh,” he said. The three of them looked at each other for a few moments, and then at the bloody bundle in the car. “Right,” Ted said finally, and leaned in to scoop the wolf up in his arms and dragged it from the backseat, his legs buckling slightly under the wolf’s weight. “Patrick, you know I love you, man, but if you try to bite me, we’re gonna have words, okay? Alexis, get the door, can you?” He staggered toward the clinic door, and David trailed behind, feeling as though he’d gone entirely insane.

*

Both Ted and Alexis were pretty adamant about David’s staying out of the room where Ted was working on Patrick. Alexis took David upstairs to the apartment and poured him a tumbler full of wine and sat him down on the sofa, then went to change out of her bloodied sweater. She was back in moments, now wearing some of her old scrubs. She bundled her cast-off sweater into the kitchen bin without so much of a _tsk_ of regret or complaint, even though it had been a Brunello Cuccinelli cashmere.

“I’m going to see if I can help out,” she said. “Don’t worry, okay, David? Ted said he doesn’t think it’s as bad as it looks; it’s mostly just messy. Stay here. I’ll come back and give you updates, I promise.” She dropped a kiss on David’s forehead before hurrying back down to the clinic.

David felt numb. He drank all of the wine. He pressed the backs of his wrists into his eye sockets and gave a loud groaning sigh. He shook out his hands, and he leaned back against the sofa and tried to take deep calming breaths and zen out, and when that didn’t work, he got up and paced and bit his thumbnails for about a year and a half until Alexis popped back in. 

“It’s going to be a little while still,” she said. “He’s doing all the yucky sewing-up bits now. But it’s really all right, David; he’s going to be fine.”

“I need to see him,” David said, heading for the door. “I want to talk to Ted myself.”

“Mm-mm, David.” Alexis stepped in front of him and stopped him with a finger in the middle of his chest, shaking her head. “You don’t want to go down there right now. You’ll pass out in like two seconds. Remember when Adelina sliced her thumb with the mandoline and you tried to help her bandage it and ended up cracking your head open on the kitchen counter?”

“I was _eleven_,” David protested, but he felt faint just thinking about it; he went back and sat down on the sofa. “How much longer?”

Alexis shrugged. “An hour or two? You can wait here with me. We’ll watch TV. Do you need more wine?”

David shook his head. “Maybe some water,” he said. “Why are you being nice to me? What’s wrong?”

“Oh my god, David. Chill. I told you, Patrick’s going to be all right.” She was in the kitchen now, clinking around with glasses and ice. “Um, why didn’t you tell me he was a werewolf? You know I wouldn’t have been weird about it. I told you about that guy I dated.”

David shrugged uncomfortably. “I know,” he said. “It’s just...it’s Patrick’s thing. It’s for him to tell people or not, and I don’t think he wants to.”

“That makes sense, I guess,” Alexis admitted. She brought him his water, with one large ice cube the way he liked it. 

“It’s my fault he got all torn up like this,” David burst out, unable to keep it back any longer. “He used to be on suppressants, and I was the one who told him he should stop taking them and be a wolf more often, and I knew he was running into trouble with some other weird wolf pack when he went up there, and I let him keep going—”

“You’re getting all worked up over nothing,” Alexis said, perching beside him and giving him a little shake. “Patrick is a grown-up. He makes his own choices. Anyway, no one ever listens to you, David; you’ve never been able to _make_ anyone do anything.”

“Thanks,” David said. “That’s so supportive. I really appreciate your support, during this incredibly stressful time for me.”

“Well, it’s true! What do you think Patrick is, some kind of puppet?” Alexis shuddered. “Ew, puppets. Now I’ve got the chills. Come on, TV time. I was right in the middle of Real Housewives when you called; it’s the one with Reiko’s Bollywood party.”

David made a face, but in truth, it was probably just the kind of distracting stupidity he needed right now; he did shamefully love Real Housewives, which was far too embarrassing to admit in public, but Alexis didn’t matter. 

“He’s a really beautiful wolf, David,” Alexis said, as she settled in with her head on his shoulder and turned on the television.

“He is, isn’t he?” David tried to suppress a rush of unwarranted pride. “Um, is there going to be a lot of scarring, did Ted say, or...not that it matters, it doesn’t, but—”

“Watch the show, David,” Alexis instructed him, and he shut up and obeyed.

*

It was late by the time Ted finished tending to Patrick’s injuries and brought David back down to see him. Alexis had fallen asleep on the sofa ages ago; David had moved her off of him before she could drool on his shoulder. 

“It took a lot of sutures,” Ted told David, walking him back into the clinic. “I mean, a lot. And he lost a ton of blood. You might want to get him to a human doctor as soon as he changes back, but he’s held together for now, anyway. I put a muzzle on him, just so you’re aware,” he added, pausing outside the surgical room door. “Just as a precaution. He’s sedated, and I know it’s Patrick, but I don’t take any chances with werewolves.”

“You’ve treated them before?” David asked, taken aback.

“A couple,” Ted said, and led him into the room, where an overwhelming expanse of wolf lay unconscious, splayed out belly-up on a wide stainless steel table.

David was glad Ted had warned him about the muzzle; the thick leather straps looked cruel against the soft red-brown fur, especially when the creature it was attached to was so obviously helpless. The stitches were startling, too, a web of ugly black crisscrossing the shaved and vulnerable skin of the wolf’s chest and underbelly, everything exposed in the bright white clinical light.

“I know it’s a lot,” Ted said, sounding very far away through the ringing in David’s ears. “But there’s no organ damage, I’m pretty sure, and these fellas heal up super fast. He’ll be on his feet again in no time, won’t you, big guy?” He ruffled the thick fur behind the wolf’s ears.

David gulped. He reminded himself to take deep slow breaths, but the strong antiseptic smell in the room combined with the heavy scent of wolf musk and blood was making him dizzy, let alone the sight of all that raw stitched-up skin. He wished fervently that this wasn’t his first time really getting to see Patrick as a wolf; he hoped it wasn’t going to be the last. 

“Can we move him somewhere?” he asked. “I don’t want him to wake up here.”

David couldn’t look at Ted, but his response sounded a lot softer and more hesitant than his usual goofy good-guy tone. “Yeah,” Ted said, dragging the word out a bit. “I...was gonna say he should maybe spend the night in one of the large kennels, but...yeah. I can bring him upstairs to the living room and lay down some bedding if you want to crash there with him tonight. I really, really strongly recommend we leave the muzzle on, though. You don’t know how he’ll react if he wakes up disoriented.”

David didn’t care, and there was no way he was planning on leaving that strappy cage-thing on Patrick’s face for two seconds once they were alone, but he nodded his agreement and then trailed behind ineffectually as Ted hefted what was probably two hundred pounds of limp and unresisting wolf and carried it back through the clinic and up the flight of stairs to his apartment. 

“You’re my hero,” David told Ted, when he had Patrick settled and looking a lot more like an oversized pet and less like roadkill, curled on his side in a pile of old blankets on the living room floor. “Seriously, I don’t know how we’re ever going to thank you, or pay you, for that matter, although of course we will…”

“Oh, send Alexis home with a few bottles of that Cabernet I like, and we’ll call it even.” Ted stood up and stretched and flexed a bit, wincing. “I needed a good workout. Too much sitting in conference rooms for the past two days. Good stitching practice, too. I’ll check on him again in the morning, but just come wake me up if you need me, okay?”

He turned to go and rouse Alexis, who was still fully crashed out and snoring on the sofa, but David stopped him and threw his arms around him; he couldn’t help it. “Thanks,” he said, trying unsuccessfully not to choke up, then stepped back quickly and swiped his sweater sleeve over his eyes. “Sorry. I didn’t want to get weird, but I guess it’s a few hours too late for that, huh?”

Ted patted him awkwardly on the back a few times. “Aw, don’t mention it,” he said. “What are brothers-in-law fur?” He yawned and stretched again. “Yeah, not one of my best. Long day. Come on, babe,” he said, turning to Alexis and giving her a gentle shake. “Need a lift to bed? You’re a feather compared to Patrick.”

When they’d finally made their way out of the living room, David lost no time unbuckling the muzzle and tossing it aside. He shuddered at the thought of Patrick returning to consciousness with that thing strapped around his face, no matter what form he was in. 

It felt almost irreligious to touch this creature without its permission, when it was helpless to do anything about it. David’s desire soon overcame his scruples, though, and he found himself brushing his fingertips against the brindled fur around the wolf’s ears, and then, with a firmer touch, smoothing the tracks that the muzzle straps had left behind. He drew back quickly when the sleeping wolf whined and gave a deep shudder and flinched away from him. He’d been stroking it with his right hand, he realized belatedly, the one with the silver rings. He always wore them during the full moon now, just in case, at Patrick’s own insistence, even though David halfheartedly tried to argue that it was highly incorrect to wear silver and gold at the same time. David quickly stripped the rings from his fingers and stuffed them into his back pocket. 

“Sorry,” he whispered. “Oh god. Sorry. Definitely not what you needed right now.” 

After another few tense moments of watching, David buried his now ringless hand in the deep shaggy fur of the wolf’s pelt at its neck. He held himself very still there, reassured by the rise and fall of the wolf’s steady shallow breathing, and then, by increments, he eased himself down by its side. It felt utterly strange and yet completely natural. He was very tired, David realized suddenly. But he wouldn’t sleep; he’d stay up and keep watch, and when the moon set he’d be able to see Patrick transforming back. He would only rest his eyes for a moment, and maybe bury his face in the wolf’s soft deep warm fur, breathing in the heady animal scent of it, and then he’d sit up again.

*

“Fuck,” Patrick breathed, and David jerked awake. 

“Oh,” he said. “You’re back. Hi. Don’t move.”

Patrick shifted slightly and put a hand to his chest, then hissed in pain. “Fuck,” he said again, touching tentatively at himself, feeling the damage. “Ow.”

“Yeah.” David took Patrick’s hand away and held it. “Um. Someone got you pretty good this time, I guess? We’re at Ted’s, in case you were going to ask that next. He sewed you back together last night.”

Patrick raised his head to look at himself, then let it fall back with a thunk against the floor. 

“Hey, careful.” David petted his hair gently, then started to get up. “Stay still. I’ll go get Ted, okay, or maybe we should get you to the hospital now that you’re—”

“No,” Patrick croaked. “Don’t. Just...” He reached for David, caught hold of his sleeve, and dragged weakly at it. “Stay. Please.”

David looked down at him, hesitating, and Patrick met his gaze. His eyes looked wolf-yellow for a second, and then he blinked, and they were Patrick’s eyes again, warm brown and a little dazed, glassy with pain and with whatever Ted had given him the night before. David leaned down and kissed him on the bridge of his nose. “For a minute,” he said. He lay back down and cradled Patrick carefully, nuzzling against his neck. “You smelled better as a wolf,” he commented. 

“I’ll bet,” Patrick said. “So. You saw me.”

David nodded into his shoulder. “You’re gorgeous,” he said shyly. “I mean, okay, you were kind of a mess. But a really beautiful mess.”

“Funny,” Patrick murmured. “Just what I thought, first time I saw you.”

David bit him, very gently, on the shoulder, then kissed him in the same spot. “What happened?”

Patrick sighed. “Three of them,” he said. “They really don’t want me up there. Won’t be doing that again.”

David frowned. “Not at that spot, you mean? Or...you’re still going to transform, right, just...not there?”

“I don’t know, David.” Patrick still sounded washed out; his voice was as pale as his skin, which had lost its normal pink undertones and was now a frightening shade of grayish white. “Talk about it later?”

“Of course,” David said quickly. He kissed Patrick’s shoulder again. “Sorry.”

There were sudden footsteps in the hall, and Ted appeared in the doorway. “Patrick! _Howl_ ya feeling, buddy? You’re back with us, I see...oh, yeah, all of you, wow,” he added, and David quickly flipped a blanket over Patrick’s lower half. 

*

In the end, after a lot of back and forthing, David ended up taking Patrick back home to recuperate. Ted thought the stitches looked better than he’d expected, and Patrick insisted that he just needed to sleep. David hinted that it would be nice if Alexis could look after Patrick for the day while he minded the store, but Alexis ignored him; she was clearly not going to be happy until her brother’s naked fiancé was off the premises. She brought him some of Ted’s older and baggier clothes and a glass of orange juice, and that was the end of her sisterly show of support. 

“You were really cute as a wolf, Patrick,” she said. “Feel better. Bye!” and left for her morning run.

“Meaning I’m not nearly as cute now,” Patrick said, still sounding entirely colourless, and even David had to agree that he wasn’t, at the moment. Patrick drank all the orange juice thirstily, though, and after that he looked a bit less like death. So David helped him put Ted’s clothes on and hovered warily as Patrick got to his feet, refusing to lean on anyone, and tottered slowly down the stairs and out to the Rose family car. 

“You know,” Ted said to David in an undertone. “There are resources, like...meetups, I’ve heard, maybe not too far from town, if he needs...more support?”

“Um, thanks,” David said, glancing at Patrick, who was only barely keeping himself upright in the passenger seat; at the moment, all he wanted to do was get him into his own bed. “That’s nice of you, Ted. I’ll have him talk to you about when he’s a little less almost dead.”

“Sure thing,” Ted said, still cheerfully. “Tell him to give me a call sometime when he’s an..._aware_wolf again.”

“Okay, you really have to stop that now,” David said, because even extreme gratitude for lifesaving had its limits.

*

Patrick slept for most of the next three days and nights. He woke up when David came home from the store in the evenings, kissed him, drank half a gallon of Gatorade, and then went back to bed. It was alarming at first, and then it was very dull, and David spent a lot of time texting with Stevie and looking up _werewolf injury recovery time_ online and watching all the romcoms that Patrick claimed to have seen five too many times already.

He checked Patrick’s stitches and anxiously texted pictures of them to Ted every evening (he texted them to Alexis by accident once and got two full screens of vomit emojis in response). He watched Patrick’s sleeping face, still pale and slack but no longer gray. He petted Patrick’s hair, so different from the thick fur of his wolf form.

He thought a lot. He had a lot of time to think.

On the fourth morning, David was woken by a steady and annoying _scritch scritch scritch_ sound, and cracked one eye open to find Patrick scratching at his stitches.

“Stop that,” David moaned, and captured Patrick’s hand, then fell immediately back asleep.

The scritching woke him again, though, some time later.

“Oh my god.” David grabbed Patrick’s hand away from himself less gently this time. “I should have had Ted give you a cone. No, that wouldn’t work. Mittens? Restraint cuffs?”

“Shh,” said Patrick. “It’s fine. I’ll fix it; don’t worry.”

David felt him get up from the bed, and he dozed off again for a minute. Maybe a few minutes. “Wait,” he said, sitting up suddenly. “Patrick? What are you doing?”

“Go back to sleep,” Patrick called from the bathroom, and David got up and went in without knocking to find him snipping the stitches with nail scissors and tweezing them out into the trash.

David sat down promptly on the toilet seat and put his head between his knees. “I’m going to pass out.”

“I told you to go back to sleep,” Patrick said. “It’s okay. It’s all healed now. That’s why it was itching.”

“You can’t do that,” David said weakly, but clearly he could, and it wasn’t as though David would be able to stop him. 

“I’m going back on the suppressants.” Patrick was still focused on taking out the last few stitches, but he gave David a quick, guarded glance as he spoke.

David looked up at him. “Okay.”

“Yeah?”

David nodded. “Of course. Whatever—whatever you want to do. It’s your...of course, yes, it’s your decision.”

Patrick tweezed a stitch from his collarbone and winced. “Sorry to deprive you of your sexy werewolf boyfriend.”

“Uh, you’ll still be my sexy werewolf boyfriend, I hope? Just...not so wolfy, and with a better chance of not coming home with missing limbs after the next full moon. I’m fine with that. Are you hungry?” David got up. 

“Starved,” Patrick said. “Hey. Hold up, don’t run away yet. Come here,” he said, and David put his arms around him, tentatively at first, then holding on hard as Patrick burrowed into his embrace. “Thanks,” he said, muffled in David’s sweater. “Sorry if I scared you.”

“Nope. Mm-mm. Not at all,” David lied. “I mean, Alexis was pretty terrified, but whatever, I was there to calm her down.”

“Uh-huh,” Patrick said, and kissed his neck. “Well, I’m sorry I scared...Alexis, then,” and David loved him so much that it hurt; he held on a little harder. He should be glad, he supposed, if Patrick wasn’t going to be risking his life once a month anymore to go off and kill small animals in the woods, but he had a terrible image in his mind: that gorgeous wild thing that had been Patrick, walking quietly into a too-small kennel with its tail down and locking itself away.

“You can’t just find a new place to go do your thing?” David asked, before he could stop himself. “Someplace less dangerous?”

Patrick shrugged. “It’ll just be the same somewhere else. I’m not very good at being a wolf, that’s all. It’s fine. Did you mention food? I think you mentioned food, a minute ago. What have we got?”

*

So that was that.

It was fine.

Back to normal.

When the full moon rose in November, David watched Patrick carefully. He seemed fine, basically. Maybe a little more fidgety than usual, a little on edge.

“What’s in these suppressants of yours, anyway?” David asked on the second night, picking up the dubious-looking prescription bottle in the medicine cabinet and scowling at the contents. “Where do you even get them? Are they approved by Health Canada?”

“I saw a lycanthropologist in Alberta right after I got bitten.” Patrick took the bottle away from him, fished out a pill and dry-swallowed it, and then put the container back in the cabinet and shut the door firmly. “It’s a lifetime prescription; it doesn’t run out. You can get it refilled online pretty easily—no one actually wants a bunch of werewolves running around everywhere, so they don’t make it difficult at all to get the suppressants. Come to bed, David.”

“Is that an order? Are you trying to pull some kind of alpha wolf thing on me? Because…”

“There’s no such thing as alpha wolves,” Patrick said, walking away. “That’s a myth. Don’t come to bed, if you don’t want to. I’m good, you know; I can take care of myself for tonight if you’re not up to it.”

“That’s such an alpha wolf thing to say,” David said approvingly, and followed him to bed.

*

A few hours later, David reached for Patrick in his sleep and grasped nothing. He half woke, groped around, found the other side of the bed empty and cold, and sat up. Patrick was at the window, leaning against the sill. He was shirtless, and the moonlight fell upon his perfectly healed, unmarked chest, but left his face in shadow. 

“Go back to sleep,” Patrick said softly without looking around at David. “I’ll be there in a minute.”

David got up, instead, and put his arms around Patrick from behind, chin on his shoulder.

“Okay, I’m just going to say it,” he said. “What if you had a mate?”

Patrick turned to look at him. His face was still half in shadow, puzzled and unsmiling. “I do have a mate.”

“That’s not what I mean. It would be safer, with two of us, wouldn’t it?”

“Oh my god.” Patrick pushed away from him and stalked across the room, shaking his head. “No. No, no, and no. David? Listen to me. Very carefully.” He came striding back over and grabbed David by the shoulders, making fierce eye contact with him. “That is _never_ going to happen. I’m not even willing to discuss it. I’m sorry, but no.”

“Wow,” David said. “Okay.”

“Good.” Patrick gripped his shoulders harder for a moment, nodded once, then released him and went over and got back into bed, turning his back.

David followed him to bed, more slowly, and lay down next to him. “I’ve thought about it a lot,” he confessed. “I wasn’t just bringing it up on a whim.”

“Yeah. Remember when I said thirty seconds ago that it wasn’t up for discussion?”

“Fine,” David said. “I thought you might want to know, that’s all, that I’d be willing to make that kind of sacrifice for you. No big deal. Never mind.”

Patrick made a disgusted sound and flipped over onto his back. “No, you wouldn’t. You don’t have any idea what you’re talking about. You’re not even thinking about it as a sacrifice. You think it would be some kind of sexy adventure; you probably like the _aesthetics_ of it because wolves are so _pretty_, and maybe you’d have a cool-looking black coat—”

“Hey,” David protested, faltering, because he’d definitely been counting on having a cool black coat, but Patrick plowed right over him.

“But the truth is that it’s not pretty. It’s weird and terrifying and it’s _incredibly dangerous_, and there’s no going back if you decide it’s not so fun after all; it’s going to keep happening to you for the rest of your life—and, god, I can’t even keep myself safe out there! The idea of having to try to look after you at the same time...that’s absolutely the worst thing you could have put into my head right now, so no. No. I don’t want to know that, David. Thanks, but _fuck_ no.”

“Okay,” David said. “I don’t know anything about it. You’re right. I’m sorry.”

Patrick had sat up, while he was talking, and wasn’t looking at him; he was hunched over with his head in his hands, breathing hard. David wanted to put a hand to his back, but he didn’t think that was what Patrick needed just then. What he needed was to go out for a walk, probably, but David wasn’t going to suggest it. 

“I’m going out for a walk,” Patrick said, getting up, and dragged on a shirt. “I need to be outside. Sorry. I know I’m being a jerk. We can talk when I cool down. Right now I just...I need to be outside.”

“Okay,” David said again, while Patrick shoved his boots on and shrugged into his coat. “Be careful?” he couldn’t help adding.

“I’ll stick close to town,” Patrick said. “They don’t come into town.” He hesitated at the door, came back over and leaned down to give David a quick kiss, and then he left.

It was true that David didn’t know much about the logistics of werewolfing. Mainly because Patrick had refused to talk about it with him, but David could see why he hadn’t wanted to, sort of, if this was how he felt about it.

He was going to find out about it, though, with or without Patrick’s blessing. He was going to find out _everything_. He picked up his phone and sent a text to Ted, knowing (because Alexis complained about it more or less constantly) that he kept his alerts on all night in case of veterinary emergencies, whatever those might be.

**About that ww support group u were telling me about last month? Can u send deets?**

Ted sent a reply a minute later.

_Hey buddy it’s like 2am can it wait till morning?_

**Kind of urgent** David texted back, which was a little bit true. Anyway, Ted was already awake now.

_Talk to Stevie,_ Ted replied, and David frowned at his phone.

**Stevie Budd???**

_That’s the one. Going back 2 sleep now talk tmrw if u need bye_

David kept staring at the text conversation on his screen for quite a while. Eventually, cautiously, as if the phone might attack at any moment, he pulled up Stevie in his contacts. He didn’t text. He called.

She answered right before voicemail would have picked up. “What the fuck, David,” she snarled sleepily in his ear.

“Nothing,” he said. “Never mind. I’ll talk to you tomorrow,” and hung up.

David lay awake after that, mind racing, and didn’t close his eyes until he heard Patrick come back up the stairs and let himself in. Then, feigning sleep, waiting for Patrick to come to bed, he slept.


	3. Chapter 3

“So,” David said to Stevie. It was the following evening, the third night of the full moon, and he’d come by the motel office to have a chat with her after closing up at work. “I realize this is a very odd question to ask out of the blue, but do you happen to know any werewolves?”

Stevie picked up the wine he’d poured her and squinted at him through the glass, then took a gulp. “That _is_ a very odd question for you to ask me out of the blue,” she said. “And suddenly I’m beginning to suspect that you didn’t just happen to stop by the motel office after work today with an extra bottle of my favourite vintage.”

“That one’s actually...not your favourite, though,” David couldn’t help pointing out. “I mean, it’s not bad, but the one you really like is kind of popular? And Patrick always gives me a hard time because he knows I give them to you at cost so often, so this is—”

Stevie waved her hand at the bottle. “Free is my favourite vintage,” she said. “Top me off again. And now I’m gonna answer your question with another question. Why are you plying me with alcohol on a Tuesday evening and awkwardly asking me about werewolves, David?”

David cleared his throat, then cleared it again. “Yeah. Well, it was Ted’s suggestion, actually. Ted, you know, Ted the vet—”

“I’m familiar with Ted.”

“Uh-huh, well, he thought, for some strange reason, that you might be the person around here for me to ask. Which I found _extremely_ odd, because I’m pretty sure that after, what, four years? Five? I’d be aware if my best friend were a werewolf. Wouldn’t I?”

“Oh, you’d be surprised,” Stevie said easily. “People keep all kinds of secrets from each other, for all kinds of reasons, even people they’re super close to, and some of them do it so well they don’t even remember they’re doing it, most of the time.”

David opened his mouth, and shut it again. “Hmm,” he said, trying to look composed. “That’s. Hmm, that’s a really interesting observation. Are you...okay, Stevie, I’ve had it with this. Are you a werewolf or aren’t you?”

Stevie’s eyes lit up with amusement, and she bit her lower lip. “No, David,” she said. “No, I’m not a werewolf. Uh, are _you_?”

“Me?” David’s voice went high. “No! But why did Ted—”

“I ask again: why do you want to know?”

David stared her down for half a minute, but Stevie won; Stevie always won. She just looked at him, serene and mildly entertained, because she _knew_ he’d always get flustered and give in first. It was maddening. He drained his own wine glass and set it down on the check-in desk. 

“Fine,” he said. “Patrick’s a werewolf, and he’s been suppressing it until...really recently, and now that he’s starting transforming more often he keeps getting into trouble with some asshole wolf gang who doesn’t want him on their turf or something, so I want to become one too so that he won’t have to be a lone wolf anymore, but he refuses to discuss it with me so I need to find someone else to bite me, I guess, and also I’d sort of like to talk about it with someone who knows more about werewolves so I can find out what I’m really getting into, because Patrick just shuts me down, and the truth is he probably doesn’t understand a lot about it himself.”

Stevie’s eyes got just a little bit larger during this speech and she blinked a few times, but her expression remained fixed for a long pause after he’d finished.

“Okay,” she said. “I admit, that was not what I was expecting to hear. How much wine do we have left? Did you happen to bring another bottle?”

*

“I do know a few werewolves,” Stevie said carefully, after she’d gotten settled with another full glass. “Okay, maybe more than a few. This is...David, seriously, have you really never noticed?”

David shook his head in irritation. “Noticed what?”

“I can’t believe you. Your family, too? None of you know?”

David was beginning to feel as though the floor were shifting under him, ready to swallow him up and drop him down a rabbithole into an alternate reality. “Know _what_? Stevie! What the fuck!”

Stevie got up and began to pace the lobby, wineglass still in hand. “When you came to live here, we all figured...okay, my money was on Alexis, actually, maybe because I like to play long odds, but the most common theory was that it was either you and your dad, or else all four of you—”

David’s hands were at his throat. “You thought we were _werewolves_? All of us? Whoa. Wait. Why? I mean…_why?_”

Stevie ignored him. “And when we finally figured out that none of you were, everyone was kind of...concerned, to say the least. There were some meetings about it behind closed doors, but eventually I was able to convince everyone that not only were you not a threat, but that you might actually all be self-centered enough to never notice at all…”

“Notice _what?!_” David cried, flinging his hands at the ceiling.

Stevie stopped pacing and looked at him. “David. You live in a one-crossroad town with a gross name, a totally off-putting welcome sign, very few amenities, two vets, and no doctors. A town that’s suddenly half vacant every now and then for three days at a time. Do the goddamn math!”

David collapsed back against the disgusting motel sofa. “Who?” he whispered. “Oh my god, Stevie. People I _know_? Here? Like…how many?”

Stevie shook her head. “I’m not telling you that.”

“But...but…” David sat upright again. “Does Patrick know? How does Patrick not know? Do they not know about Patrick? What, why…” He clapped his hands to his head; it felt as though the top of it might fly off if he didn’t. 

“Have another drink,” Stevie suggested, and poured for him. “I mean, I’d assume it’s why he decided to come here, but he’s never shown up at the group...yeah, I host a thing sometimes. Like I said, I’m not one, but a lot of my family is. You should ask him. Maybe he doesn’t know. If you’ve been on suppressants for a while, it really damps down your senses. A lot of people just choose to live like that, even here. No one would judge them. It’s not for everyone.”

David nodded. Shook his head. Nodded some more. Kept nodding. 

“Drink your wine, David.” Stevie pushed it toward him, but he pushed it away again.

“You thought I was one?” he demanded, because his brain kept flailing back over this entire conversation and finding new things to trip over.

“I mean, definitely not after the hunting trip,” Stevie said, deadpan.

“The hunting—What, was that a _test_?”

“Oh, not for me. I mostly took you there to prove it to everyone else. They believed me after that. And, David? You’d be a terrible, terrible werewolf. Please trust me on that. I’ll help you figure this thing out for Patrick—god, I should have guessed; I feel kind of bad now—but your idea about helping him by getting _bitten_? Uh-uh.”

“I don’t see why.” David drew himself up, offended. 

“Yeah, maybe think back on that hunting trip again,” Stevie suggested. “Only ten times more intense and for three days and nights once a month for _forever_.”

David shook his head. “I don’t care,” he said stubbornly. “I’d do it for Patrick. He needs this. I hate it that he feels like he can’t keep doing it.”

“I’ll talk to him. He can come to the group meeting next month. Or…what?” 

David was shaking his head much more emphatically now. “You can’t tell him I told you. He’s really...um, closeted, I guess; he’d definitely flip out.”

“But…” Stevie bit her lip again. “God, that sucks. Okay. Let me think. We’ll figure something out, okay? Don’t do anything stupid. He’s not out there now, is he?”

“He’s back on suppressants.”

“Oh. Well...good? I guess? Maybe that’s for the best. You don’t know, David. You have to let him make that choice for himself, if it’s what he wants. It’s not wrong to take something to make your life easier, you know.”

“Of course I know that. But it’s _not_ what he wants! You haven’t seen the difference it makes to him, how much more relaxed and happy and—I wouldn’t care, if he really didn’t want to be a wolf, but he hasn’t ever had the chance to _let_ himself, he thinks he’s not good enough at it or something—”

“David,” said Stevie. “Tell Patrick to come talk to me. If he wants to. In the meantime, I’m going to try very hard to forget this conversation ever happened. Hey, leave the wine!” she added, because David had grabbed the bottle and turned to storm out. 

“No,” said David. “I might need it. I’m the one who just found out I’ve been living in fucking Werewolfville for the past five years.” He slammed the office door and swept off to his room. Stevie didn’t follow him.

She was wrong, obviously. About so many things. Even with his head still whirling, David was sure she was wrong. Really, how hard could it be, being a wolf, if half the town was one? The hunting trip had been vile, yes, but that was because he was a _human_. And he wasn’t about to let Patrick deny this part of himself, or keep putting himself at risk all on his own. There was really only one thing to do.

He texted Patrick. **think I’m gonna spend the night at the motel**

_Okay_  
_I’m really sorry about last night_  
_I shouldn’t have snapped at you like that_

**It’s ok**

_No it’s not. We should talk. Maybe tomorrow?_

**y, it’s really fine, just have some stuff I need to get done here**  
**and you could prob use a quiet night**

_Okay. I love you. And I am sorry._

**ILU too**  
**even when you’re a bad dog**  
**...**  
**Am I still allowed to make dog jokes? too soon?**

_Maybe a little too soon_  
_Love you anyway_  
_Have a good night_

*

“I need the car,” David told his parents. “Also the baseball bat you’ve been hiding under your side of the bed, Dad; I know you kept it after I used it to hit the home run of the century. And Mom, do you still have that gross tacky silver key pendant?”

“Hey,” Johnny protested. “I bought your mother that key necklace! It’s from Tiffany’s!”

“Um,” David said. “Yeah.” 

“That necklace has immense sentimental value for me,” Moira said, and made a face at David over his father’s head as she pointed to the bottom drawer of her jewelry case. “Be very careful with it.” 

“Senti—that necklace has immense value, period! And the baseball bat has sentimental value for _me_!” Johnny said. “Where are you taking it?” 

“Night baseball,” David said. “It’s a thing.”

“Oh,” Johnny said, mollified. “In November, though? Is Patrick going with you? Why the necklace?”

“Uh-huh,” David said vaguely. He scooped up the car keys, pocketed the necklace, and shouldered the bat. “Thanks, see you later, bye.”

“I gave you that key for our first anniversary,” he heard his father say in injured tones as he left. “Since when is Tiffany’s tacky?”

_Since the early oughties,_ David wanted to call back at him, but he bit his tongue.

“Romantic gifts are always timeless,” Moira assured him. “I’m sure David will take excellent care of it, and won’t misplace it anywhere during his nocturnal perambulations.” She raised her voice at the last, clearly meaning for David to take the hint.

*

With the fires of heroic self-sacrifice still burning strong, David got in the car and drove all the way up to the trailhead where Patrick had taken him on their proposal hike—Patrick hadn’t ever actually said where it was that he went, as a wolf, but it was kind of the obvious place. And even if it wasn’t, it was the only place in the mountains that David actually knew how to get to, so he had to hope for the best. Or the worst. 

Was this were all the werewolves of Schitt’s Creek went to transform? Was it _people they knew_ who’d been attacking Patrick? Did they know it was Patrick? Did werewolves automatically recognize each other if they were acquainted as humans?

He knew he should be asking Patrick these things, but he could already see the tired expression Patrick would have if he came to him with more questions—and he didn’t want Patrick to know he’d talked to Stevie. Simpler this way. Soon, he hoped, he’d have a lot more answers on his own. He pulled the car in to park alongside the trail entrance, just where he and Patrick had parked, six eventful months ago.

David killed the engine and sat in the car, looking out at the night. It was very dark out there. Very, very dark. The moon was full, true, but still. He hadn’t expected it to be _this_ dark. There was a flashlight in the glove box, though, and David knew where he was going. Sort of. He took one last deep breath...then another last deep breath...and got out of the car. 

It was also unpleasantly cold. The burning flames of heroism began to flicker a bit.

“I’m doing this for Patrick,” he reminded himself, speaking out loud so it would sound more real, but his voice sounded thin and uncertain in the vastness of the wilderness at night, and he wished he hadn’t. He took three steps, dead leaves crunching beneath his feet...dead leaves, and probably some insects. David froze, and went back to the car to retrieve the baseball bat. He wanted to get bitten, it was true, but not by anything slimy or with too many legs. And he didn’t want to get actually eaten—but he was wearing silver on his hand, silver at his throat; he could keep the wolves at bay if necessary. He hoped.

He took another last deep breath that turned into four more last deep breaths, thought _for Patrick_, and headed up the trail.

Once he got going, it was almost...nice? David told himself, anyway, that it was nice. An exciting moonlit adventure in the great outdoors. It wasn’t as cold once he was climbing—his outerwear was actually weather-appropriate this time—and it wasn’t a difficult trail, or even a long one, now that he knew what to expect from it. His flashlight was strong enough to illuminate the trail ahead of his feet, and it was a clear, still night, with only occasional little breezes rattling the few leaves that remained on the trees and stirring up the ones on the ground. 

He heard a louder rattling crackle off in the trees once, and he stopped in his tracks, heart pounding, but the noise moved away swiftly. A squirrel, probably. Or a fox. David swung round in a circle, wielding his baseball bat in one hand and holding out the flashlight in the other, just in case anything were silently following him.

Nothing seemed to be, so after a minute, he went on.

And before he even expected it, there it was: the clearing where Patrick had proposed to him. It was the right place, wasn’t it? It seemed like something he should recognize instantly, even in the dark. He _had_ been a little distracted that day, of course. It felt as though the spot should have a sign marking its significance. Maybe he’d put one up, something very tasteful and natural-looking, obviously. He looked around. Yes, it was right. He remembered the shapes of the pines. What now? Just stand here and wait to be set upon by wolves? Without even a phone signal to keep him company? In the open space of the clearing, the breeze was stronger, and the light sweat he’d worked up quickly chilled him. David set down the baseball bat and wrapped his arms around himself. He wondered whose bright idea this had all been, and whether he hadn’t better just take himself right back down the trail to his car and drive back home to the motel before anyone noticed he’d been gone at all.

Then he heard it. The first howl. Followed closely by a second, third, and...fourth?

“Oh, come _on_,” David said, exasperated, because it sounded like a joke. It sounded exactly like someone making cartoon wolf howling noises on purpose to make fun of him. Could Stevie have…? Or Alexis, somehow? “Very funny, whoever you are,” David called out. “Very mature. You can come out now. I’m not falling for it.”

The moon had risen completely now, and the clearing was almost bright. He didn’t need his flashlight to see it when the first wolf padded out from the shadows on huge silent paws to stand between David and the path back down the mountain. It was massive, larger than Patrick had been by half, and its coat was a silvery white that shone in the moonlight. It sat down on its haunches, pointed its muzzle at the sky, and howled.

This close, it didn’t sound so cartoonish. The sound sent a slice of primal fear up and down David’s spine. He reached slowly for his baseball bat and picked it up again, trying to hold it in a casual, non-threatening way by his side. “Um, hi?” he called out. This was what he’d come for, after all, wasn’t it? “Hi. I’m not a threat. Although I’m not...totally defenseless, either. I come in peace!” He waved foolishly at the wolf, who regarded him impassively. “Can you understand me? Friend. Friendly. My, my fiancé, he’s one of you guys, so it’s okay, I’m on your side.” He must sound like an idiot. He felt like an idiot. Why hadn’t he thought to bring along some raw meat or something? 

There was a slight stirring of leaves from behind him, and David spun around to find three more wolves flowing soundlessly into the clearing. They circled around him as the first wolf came forward to meet them, and now he was surrounded on all sides. 

“Okay,” he breathed. “Okay, okay, okay, this is fine, we’re all good here, right? Wow. Okay.” His body wanted to crouch down and curl into a ball, protecting his vitals, but David made himself stay upright and turn slowly to look at each of the wolves in turn. Did he know any of them? Did they know him? Two of them were silver-white, one was small and black, and one was a shaggy dark brown. The bigger silver wolf, the first one he’d seen, had a deep scar slashing across its muzzle, raising one black lip in a permanent snarl. They were motionless, watching him, with only the breeze ruffling their coats as they waited to see what David would do.

“Um,” he tried. His mouth was very dry. “I don’t know if you know me, possibly we haven’t had the pleasure, but I’m David Rose, co-owner of Rose Apothecary, in Schitt’s Creek, maybe you’ve heard of it? Or been there? And I,” he swallowed, with an effort, and steadied himself. “I want to, um, join you. Not, I mean, you specifically, you seem to have your own pack thing going on here, and _that’s_ cool, but, yeah, if one of you could maybe just...bite me? A little? Not enough to cause major damage or scarring, just enough to, you know. And I won’t, we won’t, my fiancé and I, we could find someplace else to hang, if this is your...although really, actually, this spot does have some personal significance for—”

The large silver wolf took a step toward him. It didn’t look friendly. A low snarl emerged from its throat, and its scarred lip rose, further exposing its fangs on one side.

“Oh, or, you know, that’s fine, actually,” David said, backing away—not too far, or he would have backed into one of the other wolves. “It’s your space, your rules, uh-huh, whatever. You know, we sell some vitamin E-rich moisturizer that could really do wonders for that scar tissue, if you want to come by when you’re...human; I would be more than happy to offer you a one-time friends and family discount of twenty-five percent…” The wolf at his back was snarling now, too, and all of them were drawing closer in on him, slowly.

“Or a free sample?” David squeaked. “That would be fine. Anything you want, really. Do you drink wine?”

The black wolf snapped at his left hand, the one holding the bat, and David drew it back instinctively, just in time. He wanted to be bitten, true, but not _mauled_. He gasped and whirled to face his attacker, thrusting out his right hand with its silver rings, and the wolf whined and laid its ears back, still snarling and crouching low but backing away. At the same time, though, one of the silver wolves was creeping closer on his left side, and the brown one was now at his back. David swung ineffectually with his bat, trying to fend them off, and the second silver wolf butted him from behind, knocking him to the ground.

_This was probably not my smartest idea ever,_ David thought. He tried to get his feet underneath him again and keep hold of the bat and stretch out his silver-ringed hand in as many directions at once as he could manage, as if he could use it to cast a protective circle around himself. One of the wolves leapt at him from behind with a growl, knocking him back to the ground again before he had his balance. David could feel its hot breath against the back of his neck; he hoped the silver chain would keep it from sinking its teeth into him. _Fuck,_ he thought, _I can’t get torn to shreds on our engagement spot,_ and just then he heard another short, baying howl from outside the clearing, and raised his head in time to see a fifth wolf burst in on the scene.

The fifth wolf was brindle. But it couldn’t be. How could it?

The original four wolves turned from David to face the intruder, and David took the moment to snatch up his baseball bat again. Then the brindle wolf sprang, and the clearing erupted in confusion. 

David’s first conscious thought, swelling with love and pride, was _Patrick came to rescue me,_ but it was quickly followed by _He’s going to get himself fucking killed._ He scrambled to his feet and swung out with the bat, again and again, making contact, hearing yelps and snarls. The smell of wolf was overwhelming, a dense musk in the air, and then there was the smell of blood, too, and David was shoved over again, and the bat went flying far out of his reach. He heard Patrick give a hurt high-pitched yawp—it was _definitely_ Patrick, though he couldn’t have said how he knew—and he shouted out in despair and flailed around, desperate to see what was going on. Two of the wolves were nowhere in sight. The black wolf was crouching low, hackles raised and fangs flashing, blocking David’s way, and the big scarred silver-white wolf was locked around the brindle in a tangle of fur and long flailing limbs and paws, biting and snapping. David threw himself toward them, snatching the pendant from around his neck so he’d have silver on both hands, but although he grazed the big wolf’s pelt with the necklace, it merely flinched away and looked around with a malevolent yellow glare. It bought Patrick a second or two, but whether it had any real result was unclear because the black wolf sprang at David just then and set its teeth into his shoulder and flung him to the ground again, knocking the wind out of him.

David guessed that at the very least, dying together on their engagement spot was better than Patrick having to find his half-eaten body there in the morning. He heard, dimly, the sounds of other howls and barks and bays, and he thought that their other two attackers must have returned with reinforcements, so at least it would be over soon. Then the clearing was full of wolves, a riot of wolves in full voice, and the weight of the black wolf pinning him to the ground was ripped away from him. David shouted out, though he couldn’t even hear himself, and rolled over onto his back and looked around, wild to catch a glimpse of brindle fur. The scarred silver wolf was snarling and fighting with a massive gray now, and he thought he saw the black-coated one cowering before three other newcomers before slinking away into the darkness. A many-throated howl of triumph went up to the skies, with muzzles all around him pointing up to join the chorus. Was one of them Patrick’s? David couldn’t see the colours of their coats anymore. He still couldn’t seem to catch his breath. Everything was swimming together now, going fuzzy and dim, and when he shut his eyes to try and clear his head, the soothing blackness overwhelmed him and swallowed him whole. 

*

When David came to, it was still dark. He was still outside, and something cold and wet was bothering his neck. He smelled wolf, and he jerked up with a gasp, thrusting out his right hand against warm fur, which retreated at once with a low whine. 

He couldn’t breathe, couldn’t focus his eyes, and then the world came back to him and he could see the brindle wolf in the light of the setting moon. It was trying to inch closer to him, making tiny sad sounds and then falling back away from David’s outstretched hand, flattening itself to the ground and gathering itself up and trying again.

“Oh god,” David said. “Patrick. What—oh, no, honey, I’m sorry, I’m so sorry,” and he quickly yanked off his silver rings and jammed them shakily down into his pocket and opened his arms to the wolf. “What...happened? Are they gone?”

The wolf couldn’t answer, of course, but it came to him and collapsed half on top of him with what sounded like a grateful canine sigh, lapping and lapping at his neck and face and snuffling its wet nose into David’s throat. It nuzzled gingerly at his sore shoulder, making worried sounds now, but David was tired, and his wolf was warm against him. He clung to it and soon faded away again.

*

“Let me see,” Patrick was saying, when he woke the next time. Something was tugging at his collar, which hurt, and it was too cold, and he just wanted to be left alone. Why couldn’t they leave him alone?

“No,” David moaned. “Sleep. Too cold.”

“I know,” Patrick said. “Shh, I know, I just want to see if you’re okay, let me see you for a minute,” and there was freezing cold air on his skin, suddenly: intolerable, outrageous. “Shshshshsh,” Patrick said. “Okay, I’ll leave you alone now, I can’t tell for sure but I don’t think it broke the skin,” and that woke David up at last.

“I wanted to get bitten,” he said. “Did it…? It didn’t? Can you tell?” He opened his eyes to find Patrick looking at him with such a mixture of complicated things in his expression that David wanted to curl into a ball and protect his vitals again, but instead he drew in a breath and looked back at him steadily. “I’m sorry,” he said. “I’m...Patrick. I’m so sorry. I wasn’t thinking, I just...I wanted…_fuck_ it’s cold,” he added, and realized with horror that Patrick wasn’t wearing anything, that he was shaking and blue-tinged in the gray November morning. “Oh my god,” David said, and tried to wrap himself around Patrick like a blanket. 

Patrick held on to him tightly. “It’s all right,” he said into David’s neck. “I’m glad you’re okay. Probably okay. I still want you to get a blood test.”

“Anything,” David promised. “Anything, anything you want ever, let’s just...you must be frozen, how can I…” He pulled away just enough to tug off his hoodie (a long Givenchy black-on-black neoprene with leather shoulders, probably ruined with wolf spit and teeth marks now, not that it mattered _at all_) and shoved it at Patrick, who protested weakly for half a second before quickly pulling it on. “What about you? Are you okay? Your neck,” he said, with a sudden terrible flashback to the gray wolf’s snapping jaws closing around Patrick’s brindled throat. He got a hand on Patrick’s chin and tilted it up, and Patrick let him look at the damage, wincing. His neck was horribly bruised and scratched, but not openly bleeding, at least, so there was that. 

“I’m okay,” Patrick said. “Just...cold, mostly.” 

“Well, what the fuck are we hanging around on a mountaintop for, then?” David said. “Come on.”

They both got shakily to their feet, leaning on each other, laughing a little in relief and despair. David’s hoodie was oversized and hung down to Patrick’s thighs, but his legs and feet were very bare. “You can’t walk barefoot on this trail,” David said. 

Patrick shrugged. “Not much choice.”

“Uh, excuse me, but in case you’d forgotten, I’ve carried you up this mountain before,” David reminded him. “Carrying you down it will be a piece of cake by comparison. Hop up. No, no arguments, come on, we’re doing this my way,” and Patrick looked hesitant, still, but finally let him do it. They found the baseball bat, now covered with wolf blood and matted hair, and Patrick insisted on carrying it back down with them like a trophy. The Tiffany pendant was nowhere to be found, though; Moira would be pleased.

“How did this happen?” David panted. “I mean, you’re on suppressants? I saw...saw you taking them. So. How?”

“I don’t really know,” Patrick admitted. “I drove up here last night in a panic after I couldn’t reach you on your cell. Talked to your parents and Stevie and then put two and two together. I was running up the path to look for you and then I heard howling and then...wolf. I’ve read that it’s possible, for adrenaline to override the suppressants. I thought it was just another myth, but I guess maybe not.”

“Schitt’s Creek is a werewolf town,” David informed him, after a few more hundred silent meters. “Stevie told me. Last night. Did you know?”

Patrick sighed and rested his forehead against the back of David’s neck. “I know,” he said. “I mean...I’d heard rumours. I couldn’t figure out...and then I wasn’t sure if I wanted to...but, well, I know now.”

“The ones who attacked you? Us? You? Do we _know_ them?”

“No,” Patrick said. “The other wolves. The ones who rescued us. All of them, they came to save us.”

“Oh,” said David. “You could tell? Um, who…?”

“Later,” Patrick said, and just then they came to some of Patrick’s clothing, strewn and torn along the trail, and then at last his boots, so Patrick got down and put them on, and they walked the rest of the way down the mountain, hand in hand.

*

Stevie was lying stretched out on the hood of the Rose family car when they reached it, wrapped in an old plaid blanket, apparently asleep, but she sat up and stretched and hopped down as they approached. “Morning, lovebirds,” she said. “Took you long enough.”

“What,” David said, “the fuck,” but he was too tired, too sore; he didn’t even really want an explanation. He didn’t think he could process one single other thing. 

“I rallied the troops last night,” Stevie told him. “Everyone who wasn’t already out doing their own thing. Drove everyone up here in Bob’s van. They left at moonset; I stayed back in case you guys needed help. I was about to have to go up and look for you. So...do you need help? You both look like crap.”

“Oh, thanks,” David said. 

“Yeah, thanks, Stevie,” Patrick echoed, but with sincerity. “I’d hug you if I had pants on.”

“Uh, rain check,” Stevie said. “How’s David? Unbitten?”

“A little bitten,” Patrick told her. “But designer hoodies really are good for something, turns out; he might be okay. I’m taking him to Ted’s right now, if you’ll drive his car home.”

“Why, wait, what?” David sputtered. 

“Blood test,” Patrick reminded him. 

“I’m not...yes, okay, fine,” David said, because he had promised; he’d brought this whole thing down on them, after all. “I don’t feel bitten, but fine.”

“You wouldn’t feel it yet,” Stevie said. “But cheer up; maybe you wouldn’t be a werewolf anyway. You’ve always seemed more like the werepomeranian type to me.”

“That’s...not a thing,” David said uncertainly. “Right? Patrick?”

“Would you say pomeranian?” Patrick looked thoughtful. “I’d have guessed more of a were-Shih Tzu. Anyway, Ted will know. Give her your car keys, David.”

“Oh,” Stevie said. “Speaking of keys. Here’s something of yours.” She pulled Moira’s pendant out of her shirt pocket and passed it to David. “It was tangled around Ronnie’s paw. She wasn’t super happy about it. Might want to put together another one of your gift baskets for her.”

_“Ronnie,”_ David said. “Of course. Of course Ronnie.” For no reason, he thought of the great gray entity who’d fought the silver scarred wolf away from Patrick’s throat. Ronnie would be the alpha of the pack, obviously, even if there was no such thing as alphas. “Who...who else?”

“Come on,” Patrick said, tugging gently on his t-shirt sleeve. “My legs are cold. We’ll get some clothes from my place on the way to the clinic.”

*

David was willing to concede that he deserved some punishment for nearly getting himself and Patrick eaten and causing mild midnight havoc amongst the werewolf population of Schitt’s Creek. He wasn’t sure he deserved the humiliation of having to sit in a cold vet clinic with his shirt off in front of his incredibly fit brother-in-law, who cleaned and prodded at his bitten shoulder and made terrible jokes about it before finally drawing his blood. 

“Since when are you such a werewolf expert, anyway?” David demanded. 

“Oh, since university,” Ted said cheerfully. “Dr. Ted Mullens, LLC. Licensed Lycanthopologist of Canada.”

“Huh,” said Patrick. “Not Limited Liability Company, then.”

“Well, that too,” Ted agreed. “LLC LLC, if you want to get technical about it. Okay, quick pinch now, David, don’t look down…”

David glanced down at his arm, saw the vial Ted was holding begin to fill up with dark red, and inhaled sharply, squeezing his eyes shut and tilting his chin toward the ceiling.

“You’re doing great,” Patrick said, massaging his unbitten shoulder. “Hang in there.”

“Yep, all done.” Ted clapped a cotton ball and a bandaid onto the crook of David’s elbow and turned away. “Results in twenty-four hours. I’m pretty sure they’ll be clear, though. How’s your neck?” he asked Patrick. 

“It’ll be fine,” Patrick told him. “Thanks, Ted. We owe you. Again.” He handed David his shirt and gave him a look that made David suddenly less anxious to go home.

“So how furious are you with me, on a scale of one to ten?” he asked Patrick, when they were back in the car. 

Patrick glanced over at him in surprise, then looked quickly back at the road. “Zero, David,” he said. “I’m zero furious with you. Okay, maybe one or two. But mostly just eight furious with myself. We’re going to talk, okay? We’re going to talk about a lot of stuff. But for now, I’m just really, really sorry I put you in a position where you thought getting yourself turned into a werewolf was the only way to get through to me.”

This was all wrong. David opened his mouth and then closed it again, because it was so wrong that he couldn’t even begin to think of how to refute it. 

_Was_ it wrong?

“Look,” David said finally. “I’m were-curious, okay? I admit it. I’ve been jealous, maybe, that you get to have this big important mysterious thing. And I handled it really badly. We should have talked about it more.”

“You tried,” Patrick said grimly, looking straight ahead, and David didn’t know what to say to that, because it was true. 

“Well, you weren’t ready to talk about it,” he said finally, which was also true. “You’ll...you’ll talk to Stevie, right? And the others? Who the fuck _are_ the others? Besides Ronnie, who is so obviously a werewolf that I can’t believe I didn’t know that the minute I met her. She was the gray one, wasn’t she, the one who...? And, uh, Bob? Twyla? God, _Roland_? Ew. Please don’t let us have to be grateful to Roland for saving our lives.”

“I can’t tell you that.” Patrick was smiling slightly now. “I don’t know, David. I could recognize some of them, but...I don’t know if they’d be okay with me telling you. Your were-curiosity will have to eat you alive for now, I guess. Figuratively. I hope.”

“I deserve that,” David admitted sulkily. 

They stopped by the store to put a CLOSED TODAY SORRY sign on the door, and then they went back to Patrick’s apartment and showered until the hot water ran out. Then they went to bed and talked, and talked, and kissed and licked each other’s bruises and bites, and finally fell asleep, warm and entwined.

***

EPILOGUE

“Of course I knew about Patrick,” Ray said, passing David the tray of crudités. They were extremely crude crudités, mostly just baby carrots and ranch dip with a few sad-looking olives dotted around for variety, but David supposed he shouldn’t have expected any better from a pack of werewolves. “We shared a bathroom. He kept his suppressants in the medicine cabinet! But I thought he must have his reasons for wanting to lay low, so I never mentioned it. I did drop hints—oh, all the time. Do you want to join me for dinner at my cousin’s place this weekend, Patrick, we’re having fresh venison; that sort of thing. But he never took me up on it, so.”

“And you didn’t tell anyone else?” David said, fascinated. 

Ray cleared his throat delicately. “David, I know you’re new at this,” he said. “So I’ll try not to take offense. Nonetheless, I am a little offended.”

David was about to apologize, but it was Ray; Ray was basically unoffendable in any permanent sense. Besides, the others were beginning to arrive now, and he was rapt. “Why Stevie’s place, anyway?” he asked Ray, as the little apartment began to fill up.

“Neutral territory,” Ray said. “Since she’s not one of us, she’s become a peacekeeper of sorts. And there’s the connection with her great-aunt, who _was_ one of us—didn’t you know she started the motel as a way station for traveling werewolves? I volunteered to hold the meeting at my place once when Stevie was out of town, but it ended badly.”

“How badly?” David was so distracted that he popped an olive into his mouth by mistake and had to discreetly spit it out into a cocktail napkin.

Ray cleared his throat again. “Roland urinated in my aspidistra,” he whispered. “But you didn’t hear it from me.” 

Patrick, who’d been deep in conversation with Jocelyn on the other side of the room, sidled over to them and put a hand on the small of David’s back, the sort of casual possessive touch that David would have savoured if he weren’t too busy clocking all the new arrivals. 

“How are you doing?” Patrick murmured. “Feeling like prey yet?”

“You’ll protect me,” David said absently. “And I’ve got my mother’s tacky silver key necklace on; I didn’t dare give it back to her. Besides, I can’t seriously imagine being eaten by Jocelyn or Ray, or...oh my god, look, Twyla just walked in—well, obviously Twyla’s a werewolf, and...holy fuck, _Mutt_? I mean, it makes total sense, but how did Alexis not know?! I’m texting her. This second.”

“Later,” Patrick said, taking David’s hand. “It’s starting now.”

“It is? How do you know? Is there, like, pack sense for you now? Are you guys gonna do a group howl, or—”

“Oh, I really regret bringing you here already,” said Patrick. “Stevie’s standing on a chair, is how I know. Shhhh.”

“Okay, I hereby call this meeting to order, yadda yadda et cetera, everyone shut up now,” Stevie called out, and the room gradually hushed. “Thank you. Um, first order of business, we’d like to welcome our newest member, Patrick Brewer—” There was scattered applause, a few _welcome_s and a _yay, Patrick!_ from Twyla, “—and his partner, who is our guest for tonight only, as a one-time...thing, provided that he keeps his mouth shut and doesn’t go repeating anything he hears or sees tonight all over town.” Stevie gave David a Look, and he bit his lips tightly shut, nodding enthusiastically and then shaking his head. 

“Second item on the agenda, uh…” Stevie consulted the list she was holding. “Oh, right. I will now turn the meeting over to Ronnie Lee, for a brief presentation on the proper disposal of carcasses and tips for disguising them as roadkill, while I gladly yield the floor and go have a drink. Or three.” She hopped down from the chair.

“Ew,” David whispered to Patrick. 

“You wanted to come,” Patrick reminded him. 

“I wanted to see who else would be here. And to find out about those Elmdale wolves who attacked us. Where do they get off thinking _our_ engagement spot is _their_ personal territory?”

“Because it is,” Patrick said, almost without moving his mouth, with his eyes fixed on Ronnie. “I told you. The mountain’s been Elmdale wolf property since the late eighteen-hundreds; we’re both lucky to be alive. Although we might not be for much longer if we don’t—”

“Hey,” Ronnie called out. “New cub. Did you have something you wanted to share with the group?”

“Um,” said Patrick. “Nope. Nothing. Just here to learn, today.”

“That’s right,” Ronnie said, with a withering glare. She resumed her lecture. David decided it would be a good time to find out what Stevie was drinking.

Stevie was playing on her phone at the other end of the room. “So,” David said, nudging her. “These meetings. Are they always like this?”

“Like what?” Stevie said innocently.

“Uh, boring and disgusting?”

“Just wait.” Stevie took another swallow of her drink—neat whiskey, it looked like. “Bob’s going to be performing later on. ‘A Scat Song on Scat.’”

“You’re kidding,” David said. “Right?”

“I wish. Better start drinking.”

“Why do you allow this to happen in your home?” David wanted to know. “What do you get out of it?”

Stevie shrugged. “They bring me booze? And other stuff. I’ve got a freezer full of rabbit stew at the motel.”

“Oh my god.”

“It’s not that bad. Not just the stew, I mean. All of it. You had to grow up with it, I guess. Or maybe not,” Stevie said, glancing up from her phone and lifting her chin in Patrick’s direction. David turned to look. Patrick was absorbed, alight. He was nodding along with some of Ronnie’s points, leaning over to say something behind his hand to Ray, who doubled over with brief laughter and clapped Patrick on the back. David felt his gaze go soft, watching him. He’d be giving his own boring and disgusting presentation by the next meeting or the one after, no doubt, probably with Powerpoint slides. Or he’d be bringing his guitar to perform an original composition, some love song to the moon with a lot of _owoooo_ing in the chorus. 

David turned back to Stevie, not even bothering to try and hide his expression. She had poured a second glass of whiskey and was holding it out for him.

“Yeah, he’s gonna love it,” Stevie agreed. “He’ll be great.”

“I know,” David said. “Thank you, Stevie,” he added. “Total lifesaver,” and he was taking the glass from her as he said it, so they could both pretend he meant the drink.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thanks again to my wonderful team of betas and cheerleaders, and to all the Rosebuddies for their encouragement. And extra love to Leupagus in this chapter for gifting me with werepomeranian!David and, really, the whole weretown-Schitt’s Creek concept. <333


End file.
